Starlight
by Reia Kellyn
Summary: 'But Gordon's there, holding her back with tears streaming down his face and there's a scream coming out of her mouth that pierces her heart over and over.'
1. Starlight

_**Yeah, I probably shouldn't be writing this. I've got to update my other fics but this idea just jumped into my head and I had to write it. **_

_**The plotline follows an AU of if magic hadn't existed, or at least not in the form of magic in the books, and Valkyrie hadn't drifted from her childhood friends. It's a oneshot for now but if you want me to continue with it I will :) Any questions, you know how to review or PM.**_

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><p><em>Far away, this ship has taken me far away<em>

_Far away from my memories_

_Of the people who care if I live or die_

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><p>''We did it!''<p>

It's all Valkyrie can think about as she looks into the setting sun, her hair blowing out the window, her hand linked with Gary's as he steers with his other. They've finished high school, finished with all the drama and fights, and they're heading to Dublin Trinity College, to really make something of themselves.

Just one last graduation party to go to - at Gordon's, of course - and they're done with Haggard and Valkyrie almost can't believe it. She twists around in her seat and smiles at the three in the back. Hannah, her best friend, the ice-cold girl with the heart of gold, is snuggled up with Nathan, who's looking at her with pure adoration. Nathan winks at Valkyrie, tucking some hair behind her ear.

''I swear I'll throw myself out this car if you don't stop being so adorable,'' laughs a male voice and Valkyrie can't help but chuckle at Ronan, her other best friend, who is bouncing around in his seat and grinning from ear to ear.

Gary looks at her before turning back to the road with a smile almost as big as Ronan's. ''We did it, babe,'' he grins and she can only nod with happiness because she feels the link that binds them all together, marks them out as something more special than all the people without dreams in Haggard.

It's such a powerful moment, of excitement and love and hope, that she doesn't almost doesn't notice when it changes.

Something darts across the road - a badger or fox - and Gary jerks the car to avoid hitting it. The Mitsubishi leaves the road and Valkyrie sees the tree just as they hit it and her friends are _screaming_, and there's an awful, sickening lurch as the car flips over and Ronan isn't laughing any more.

The vehicle keeps on going, and there's a shriek of metal and something red sprays across her face. She cries out and there's another slam, her body is thrown, then silence. She's lying out of the car, on the damp earth, and she can see Gordon's estate right ahead.

There's figures running towards her, but it doesn't matter, because she can't see any of her friends. Valkyrie pulls herself up slowly, so slowly, and she sees the petrol dripping in the twisted wreck, the flames licking at the ground, and knows that the car is going to explode soon - and there's nothing she can do - and Gary is lying in the front seat with blood trickling down his neck - and he won't open his eyes -

She starts dragging herself back, because that's _it _for her, because her whole life is in that car, and she's not letting them go without her.

Time seems to freeze as Ronan turns his head to look at her with something in his eyes that she's never seen before...

And the car blows up right in front of her eyes and she knows she's too late.

She keeps going though, because what else can she do?

But Gordon's there, holding her back with tears streaming down his face and there's a scream coming out of her mouth that pierces the night over and over.

It's a scream that nobody, not one person standing there on the empty road in Ireland, will forget.

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><p>In the ambulance when she regains consciousness long enough, Valkyrie turns to the paramedic nearest to her, moaning at the burns rubbing on her back.<p>

''Will you go back for my friends? They're there, they're in the car. They're still alive.''

He looks at her with a distraught expression and that's when she realises that the world is an ugly, ugly place.

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><p>The funerals are something she never thinks about, and she blanks them from her memory so completely she couldn't remember them if she tried. Desmond and Melissa stay with her, through the weeks when she just stays in bed and stares at the pictures of her old life, when it was the five of them against the world.<p>

But then she looks at the picture of them all after Nathan's birthday, where they have their arms linked around each other's waists, laughing into the camera.

That's when she knows that she's living for five people, and she's going to try to do right by them every day for her pitifully long life.

That's also the day when she emails Dublin Trinity telling them that she _will _be attending after all, and she packs her bags that very night. A week after that, Desmond, Melissa and Gordon wave goodbye to her on the bus to Dublin, and she tries to wave back as if she's another normal university-age girl.

(A few tears escape when the bus passes _that_ spot laden with flowers and teddy bears and echoes of terrified screams, though.)

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><p>The college is nice, and it looks exactly like it did in the leaflets spread across Hannah's bedroom floor. A woman shows her to dorm room 465 (<em>nine doors down from the rooms you were going to share, <em>whispers a voice inside her head) and hands her the key. ''You're sharing with another young woman,'' she says, adjusting her glasses. ''I expect she'll be arriving soon. Anything you need, dear, just ask for me at the front office.'' Giving her a pat on the shoulder she toddles away.

Valkyrie grits her teeth as she lifts her bags, and dumps them in one of the bedrooms before sitting herself down on the bed. The first thing she unpacks is the picture of them after graduation, locked in the same poses from Nathan's birthday party picture (the one that she's been keeping in her pocket for weeks now). It's in a photo frame Ronan gave her, and she sets it on the cabinet beside her bed.

''I'm trying, honest,'' is all she whispers to them before unpacking the rest.

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><p>She hears the front door bang open an hour later, and many voices flood the dorm. She takes a deep breath, smoothes her t-shirt, and steps out of her new bedroom.<p>

There's a few people moving with bags across the room, laughing and talking excitedly in a language all of their own that Valkyrie can't interpret. It was like that with the five of them though, so she understands.

''Oh, hey!'' A good-looking blonde who seems slightly older than herself grins. ''You must be Valkyrie?'' Valkyrie nods her head in confirmation and looks the girl up and down. She attempts to smile - she's out of practice - and outstreches her hand. ''Yes, I'm your roomate. Sorry, I don't know your name.''

''It's Tanith, Tanith Low. These are my friends who are moving in down the hall. Fletcher, who's studying business-'' she nods her head to a boy with carefully groomed hair, ''-that's China, she's doing a literature course -'' a stunning woman with black hair nods coolly, ''-Skulduggery is training to be some law enforcement thing-'' a tall, thin man with dark hair rolls his eyes good-naturedly, ''-and Ghastly is my boyfriend! He's going to be the best tailor in Dublin.'' Tanith grabs the scarred, muscled man behind her and plants a kiss on his cheek.

He smiles at her with soft eyes, and Valkyrie has to look away for a moment because it reminded her of how Nathan used to look at Hannah...how Gary used to look at herself.

Tanith turns back to Valkyrie. ''What is it you're studying?''

Valkyrie doesn't want to tell her that she was going to be studying criminology, that that dream had gone up in smoke along with the bodies of her best friends. So she replies with ''Business studies. You?'' Tanith claps her hands with a gleeful smile. ''Dance. I've been dancing since I was a tiny little toddler, it's all I've ever wanted to do, really.''

Tanith grabs the arms of her four friends and it's painful to look at, it really is, how Tanith and China quickly squeeze hands the way she and Hannah sometimes did, and how they all treat Fletcher as the baby of the group like Ronan, how Ghastly high-fives Skulduggery and wraps his arm around Tanith's waist. Now Tanith's laughing and she pulls Valkyrie into the hug. ''It's going to be so fun here, I can just tell!'' She whoops as Skulduggery messes up her hair.

Leaving them all giggling and talking, Valkyrie moves back to her bedroom. She sees them all roar with laughter over a shared joke, and it scares her how similar this group is to her own. She won't, _can't_, get close to them. (There's soft, strangled screams and a memory of Ronan's final look to remind her never to care that much again.)


	2. Hallelujah

_**Hey! Thanks so much for your great reviews, I'm really happy you liked my attempt at angst :) Please review and tell me if I'm giving Valkyrie too much Bella Swan Syndrome :3**_

_**Also, I've got massive headcanons for this story, so if you have any questions or want to know more PM me and I'll try and post answers to try and make things clearer.**_

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><p><em>Love is not some victory march<em>

_It's a cold, and it's a broken Hallelujah_

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><p><em>The sky was a slate grey over Haggard as Valkyrie sat huddled at the pier. She checked her phone again - punctuality had never been one of Hannah's qualities - and looked up as she heard the crunch of shoes against gravel.<em>

_Gary stood in front of her with a grin as he hooked his hand into his jeans pocket. ''Alright?'' Valkyrie grinned. ''No offense Hannah, but you've changed since the last time I saw you.'' Gary smirked and offered her his hand. ''Come on. Hannah and Nathan are off kissing somewhere so I told her I'd take care of you.'' ''Really?'' ''No, but I have nothing better to do. Come wench, take me to the cinema!''_

_She let him pick her off the ground and they started towards the bus stop. ''Never call me wench again. And now we're seeing a film?'' He shrugged. ''I was thinking I could chat you up during the new Disney film that's out. It's so cheesy mice have been known to nest under the seats.'' She laughed._

_''Well, I always said I'd end up with a guy that could handle his Disney movies.'' Gary took her hand as the bus drew up and bent to place a kiss on it, brown eyes sparkling._

_''Guess I better go halves on the popcorn then.'' _

_''Oh, you charmer.''_

_''I've been practicing asking you out for three months now, I bloody hope I come across as charming.''_

_She raised his eyebrows as they paid the fare and took their usual seats at the back of the bus. ''Three months? And you've never said anything? Gary, you're really thick sometimes.''_

_''How?''_

_She leaned across the space between their seats and kissed him. ''I like you, too.''_

Dark eyes flew open.

Valkyrie sat up in bed, noting the Sunday mid-morning light streaming through her open curtains. The dreams came every night, and while she never really got used to them, she knew what was coming, more or less.

She padded into the kitchen-cum-living room, which was still slightly alien to her after four days of living there.

''Rough night?'' Tanith, who she genuinely liked, even if she didn't know her that well, smiled at her as she pushed a plate of pancakes across the kitchen bar. Valkyrie slid into a stool and frowned. ''Yeah, actually. How did you know?''

Tanith ran a hand through her unruly blonde waves. ''I, well...I heard you shouting.'' Her expression was sympathetic and slightly awkward, but Valkyrie only felt puzzled.

''That's weird. My dreams aren't scary or anything.'' ''Mmmm? What're they about?'' ''I was rem-'' She broke off and took another bite of pancake. ''Never mind. Sorry if I woke you.'' Tanith waved her away. ''Nah, I was talking with Ghastly on the phone until the early hours, so I was already up. You going to finish that?''

Valkyrie shook her head in apology and scraped her mostly-full plate into the bin before moving to help with the dishes. ''Uni starts on Monday. Got any plans for tonight?''

The other girl shrugged. ''I was thinking about having my friends over for a DVD, if that's OK?'' Valkyrie put the final bowl in the rack to dry. ''Yes, sure. I was thinking of going out for a run anyway.''

''What? Oh, no!'' Tanith twisted round with a pleading look in her eyes, drying her hands on a dish towel. ''I was really hoping you'd stay and hang out with us. It would be great if you all got to know each other, and we hardly know one another either!''

_I'm actually surprised you don't know about me. My face was spread across half the newspapers in the country a few months ago. _Valkyrie forced down this hard thought and shook her head instead. ''I want to check out campus, you know, I might as get some exercise done while I'm at it. Maybe another time.''

Trying to not feel guilty about Tanith's hurt look, she got changed back in her bedroom into one of her old T-shirts and left with a call of ''I'll be back later!''

Switching on her battered iPod, she selected a fast track with a bass that drowned out any stray thought she might have and set away from the dorms, keeping up a fast pace. The smacking sound of her trainers against concrete was the only other thing she could hear, and when she was like this, music pounding in her ears and blood rushing through her head, she could feel peace.

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><p>A few hours later, hair still messed from the wind, she pushed open the door to 465, clutching the bag of doughnuts she'd brought as a white flag for Tanith. Hopefully she could pass off her nerviness at breakfast on term starting tomorrow. Valkyrie pushed open the door with her shoulder, taking a breath. ''Tanith? I brought - oh.''<p>

Her roomate was on the sofa under a blanket with Ghastly; Skulduggery (_that cannot be his real name) _and the boy with the big hair were streched out on the floor. China, the beautiful dark-haired woman, was sitting elegantly on a winged armchair, looking amused as the _Back to the Future _opening sequence flashed on the TV screen.

''Hey, Valkyrie.'' Tanith twisted around in Ghastly's arms and beamed at her. ''You're back just in time for our epic _Back to the Future _marathon! We kind of already had lunch, but there's some leftover pizza in the fridge if you want that.'' Valkyrie shook her head slowly, tossing the bag of doughnuts onto the telephone table and inching towards her room.

''You know, I think I'm going to catch a shower and-'' her speech slowed to a halt as Tanith's eyebrow impressively rose higher and higher. ''Valkyrie. We start university tomorrow. You need to relax. Take your iPod out, grab a slice of pizza and sit next to Fletcher. That is, of course,'' - she directed this last sentence to the blonde boy - ''providing you don't hit on her.'' He shrugged. ''No promises.''

Valkyrie uneasily popped the iPod buds out of her ears. ''I really should sort out my papers for term tomorrow. Sorry.'' She tried to ignore Tanith's wounded look and poured some popcorn into a bowl for her afternoon-revision sugar fix. Fletcher turned around from his spot on the floor with an easy smile. ''Don't let Skulduggery at that,'' he mock whispered, nodding his head at her bowl of popcorn. ''He really shouldn't take on all those extra calories. Believe me. He'll eat it _all_.'' Skulduggery turned around with a frown, thick brown hair falling across his forehead. ''Are you calling me fat?'' Fletcher innocently looked up at the ceiling and Skulduggery kicked him. ''Ghastly, he's calling me fat!''

Ghastly, arms around Tanith's waist, rolled his eyes in a manner that told Valkyrie he had to mediate between the two more often than not. ''I'm actually trying to watch this movie. Sort it out yourselves.'' His words resulted in a furious, silent wrestling match between Skulduggery and Fletcher which ended with Skulduggery sitting on top of the younger boy. ''I think you should lose some weight, Skul,'' gasped Fletcher as he struggled beneath him. ''I'm definitely feeling these extra pounds.''

A giggle escaped Valkyrie's lips and she was shocked by the sound of it; it had been such a long time since anyone could make her laugh. Skulduggery noticed her chuckle and looked at her. ''You should see dinnertime. Fletcher and I's food fights make World War Two seem like a friendly spat.'' She smiled carefully as she picked up the popcorn bowl and headed for her bedroom, feeling her roomate's close gaze. ''Maybe sometime I'll come see if I should support Germany or Britain.''

Tanith beamed.

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><p>It was a little past nine o' clock when Tanith's friends finally left; Valkyrie could hear them calling out goodbyes from her position on the bed, unopened revision guides and essays spread out in front of her.<p>

There was a knock on the door, and after pulling a few of the guides towards her Valkyrie replied with what she hoped was an airy ''Come in!''

Tanith's head appeared around the door, and when she spoke her voice was soft. ''Hey. I just want you to know, it was really nice of you to say you would come out to dinner with us sometime.''

Valkyrie gestured at the armchair beside the wardrobe, and Tanith grinned at the invitation before crossing the room and sinking into it. ''I know you don't know the others that well, and that Fletcher is kind of excitable, but you get used to that. It might take a few years,'' she added with a wry smile, ''but eventually you do.''

''Have you known each other a long time?''

The blonde girl drew her legs up underneath her, face thoughtful. ''I guess so. He's almost two years younger than me but we grew up together - we were the only kids from London at our school so we kind of bonded.'' Valkyrie nodded. ''That explains your accents. And the others?''

''Oh, there's a lot of stories there. But come on, what about you? We should get to know each other if we're going to be roomates! Tell me everything.''

Valkyrie hesitated, and Tanith winced. ''Sorry. I'm too curious for my own good.''

''No, it's fine. I'm just kind of a private person.'' Her gaze strayed to the picture on her cabinet, the five teens grinning wildly at the camera in their graduation caps and gowns. Tanith followed her line of vision and her eyes lit up in interest. ''Oooh! Are they your friends?''

Valkyrie felt herself go blank and she struggled to keep her face from crumpling. ''They're people I know.'' Tanith frowned slightly and Valkyrie hoped her voice was under control. ''But really, I'm exhausted. We better get an early night. Term starts tomorrow.''

The blonde nodded, standing up and giving Valkyrie a final smile. ''Night, Valkyrie. Have a good sleep.''

''Goodnight, Tanith.''

After she brushed her teeth, switching the light off and settling into bed, Valkyrie turned onto her side. The graduation picture looked back at her, dimly lit by the moonlight spilling through her window. ''Do you miss me?''

The grinning faces didn't reply, of course. They never did. ''I miss you.'' She rolled over onto her back, looking dry-eyed at the ceiling. ''So much.''


	3. Cough Syrup

_**Again, all your reviews are brilliant. If you have any questions or ideas for this story, just let me know.**_

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><p><em>Life's too short to even care at all, oh woah<em>

_I'm losing my mind, losing my mind, losing control_

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><p><em>''Oh hell. This cake doesn't look good.''<em>

_Ronan was right. It didn't look good._

_''Did you add milk? I think you were supposed to add milk.''_

_''We're out of milk,'' Melissa said as she walked into the kitchen. ''Lazy cows, that's who I blame.''_

_Valkyrie scowled as she beat her mixture, and Ronan's face fell even more as he upturned his dish and tried to shake the cake out._

_''It's stuck fast. This is bad. Awful. Nathan's birthday is going to be ruined and Hannah will give me that death glare she does. You know how powerful and scary it is. It might even blow me up.''_

_Valkyrie held up her free hand. ''Ronan, stop. You're doing the babbling thing again.'' The boy grinned good-naturedly and mimed zipping up his lips. Valkyrie turned to her parent with a pleading expression. ''Mum, we have to have these cakes ready. Nathan's party is tomorrow.''_

_''I thought you were going bowling? That just includes some overindulgence in pizza, last time I checked.''_

_''Yes, but we need to bring cake! You can't have a birthday without cake. It's inhumane.''_

_Melissa looked at Ronan, who had returned to muttering frantically to himself as he shook the dish containing his ruined baking. ''Maybe if I just coat it in sugar...?''_

_''Fine. Ronan, I'll fix the cake. But I want the two of you on babysitting duties for the next month.''_

_Ronan beamed from ear to ear. ''Melissa, you're an angel.''_

There was a bang, and Valkyrie opened her eyes. Early morning light was streaming in her windows and she could hear Tanith swearing next door. There was half an hour before her alarm is due to go off, so she forced herself out of bed - spending an extra few minutes finding something passable to wear for her first day wouldn't hurt.

After her shower she decided on jeans, a pair of not-too battered flats, and - seeing as there was still hints of summer in the September air - a loose top that Melissa had bought for her a few months previously.

Thinking about her mother made her guilty - she had only called home twice since she arrived at university. She scribbled down a note reminding her to call as soon as she got back from lectures afternoon and stuck it to her mirror before picking up her notebooks and opening her bedroom door.

Tanith was at the kitchen bar stacking up apples and she called a good morning in Valkyrie's direction. ''Sorry if I woke you up; knocked over the fruit bowl. Ready for your first day?''

''I think so. What's you cooking?''

Tanith winked and ladelled pancakes onto the plate in front of Valkyrie with a grin. ''Eat up. You'll be starving later.'' Valkyrie cut off a bit of the pancake and took a bite. ''Thanks. Tastes great.'' She got a toast from Tanith's glass of orange juice in return, though the clock soon had them loading up the dishwasher with their used plates. ''It isn't lazy if we just shove them all in, is it?''

''Of course not,'' Tanith said, closing the dishwasher. ''We're being canny with our time. Completely different things.'' She picked up a bag slung over the back of a chair and looked at Valkyrie. ''Want to walk with me? I think your first lecture is on my route.''

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><p>''Wake <em>up<em>, Skulduggery. We're late. Get yourself moving.''

Skulduggery's eyes opened in time to see Ghastly throwing a cusion at him. His eyes slid to the clock on his dresser and suppressed the urge to curse. ''We're late.''

Ghastly rolled his eyes. ''That's what I've been saying. Get dressed, I made breakfast.'' He wandered back through to the main room and Skulduggery inhaled a deep breath of whatever it was he had made - probably waffles. Tanith's baking was pretty good, but Ghastly's waffles were a work of art.

He got dressed in a shirt and jeans that he just _knew _would make Tanith call him out on dressing like a City banker, but they suited his sharp frame and were approved by China's fashion-conscious eye. He walked through to the living room and stopped dead as he saw Fletcher finishing off the waffles with a cheeky grin.

''You didn't.''

Fletcher shrugged, the smug smile on his face widening. ''You snooze, you lose.'' Ghastly chuckled. ''Go grab some fruit or something.'' Skulduggery narrowed his eyes as he stalked towards the fridge.

''How did he even manage to finish the waffles? I took less than ten minutes to get ready!'' The blonde shrugged again. ''Must be my brilliant ninja reflexes.''

Skulduggery tipped him off his chair as he walked past. ''Brilliant ninja reflexes? I'm sure.'' He pulled open the fridge door and settled on opening a pot of yoghurt. ''Why are you even in our dorm anyway? I would've thought you'd be in your room gelling your hair up to concrete-hard standards.''

''Ha ha ha. Always so witty in the morning - hey! Don't even think of coming near me with that yoghurt!'' Skulduggery settled back into the kitchen chair with a small grin. Teasing Fletcher was a high point of his day. ''By the way,'' Ghastly said, leaning against the sink, ''on Saturday we're going out on a pub crawl, celebrating the new university year by getting absolutely hammered.''

''Are you sure that's a wise idea?'' Skulduggery pointed his spoon at Fletcher. ''Remember what happened last time we went out drinking. The aim of a pub crawl isn't, you know, to _literally _crawl out of the pub.''

The boy flushed. ''You were the one that bought the shots!'' ''And better money was never spent, believe me.''

Ghastly allowed himself to grin at the memory. ''Really, Fletcher, if we had known you'd end up limbo-ing in a fez with the bar manager, I don't think we'd have forced you to do these shots.''

''Yes we would've, even then. And we'd still put the pictures up on Facebook.''

With an eye-roll of dismissal, he stood up. ''Right, let's go. I can't be late on my first day.'' The trio picked up their jackets and Skulduggery turned to Ghastly as he locked up. ''Where are we meeting the girls?''

''Not sure,'' the tailor-in-training shrugged. ''Tanith said she'd text to let us know.''

They headed out of the dorm hall, cutting across campus through the students hurrying to their first lectures. Skulduggery nodded at the building to their right. ''This is me. Text me if Tanith gets to either of you.''

He walked off, smiling at Fletcher's call of ''Don't bully your lecturers _too _much!''

Skulduggery waved his hand in goodbye. ''I'll only harass the stupid ones.''

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><p>Her first lecture was an hour long, and Valkyrie propped the water bottle on top of her notebook with trepidation. It was Nathan who had always reminded her to drink water during long classes, and Valkyrie almost pulled out her phone to text him her thanks about the advice before reality caught up with her and she shook her head to clear it halfheartedly. Real life dimmed so much in comparison to the times when she forgot.<p>

There was a squeak of a chair being pulled back and Valkyrie jerked her head up to see one of Tanith's friends standing beside her. ''Hey,'' he said with an easygoing smile, ''can I sit beside you? I don't recognise anyone else here.''

She murmured in assent and he dropped into the chair, dumping his books and pens onto the desk in front of them. ''How are you?''

She nodded. ''I'm, mmm, fine.'' She blew out slowly. _Get a grip. You'll scare this guy off if you keep up the monosyllabic answers. _''And you? Skulduggery seemed to have beat you up pretty good the last time we met.''

He tipped his head back and his chuckling was such a natural sound that it made Valkyrie ache, for the first time in too long, to hear her own, unconstrained laugh.

''It took me a few hours to recover, but me and my pride are relatively unbruised now.'' He looked as if he might carry on, but their lecturer stepped up to his podium, and the room fell silent. Valkyrie opened her books and clicked her pen. She really wished it wasn't so easy to like Fletcher.

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><p>It was halfway through the lecture when Fletcher knew he was incredibly attracted to Valkyrie. She yawned, and her eyebrows scrunched up in such an innocent expression that he had to smile. He had always had a wide exposure to beauty - having friends like China and Tanith did nothing to lower his standards in women - but the girl he sat beside was different from others he'd dated.<p>

Valkyrie's smooth skin was pale, stark against the black hair that fell down her back. Her eyes were dark and almost worryingly shadowed, but they were intriguing, as if things he wouldn't understand roamed behind them. And she never smiled. Her lips had curved up when they had talked, though her eyes hadn't shown anything other than quiet detachment. She brushed back a staight strand of hair that had slipped over her shoulder and Fletcher groaned internally. He had it bad.

There was a faint buzz against his leg and he looked frowned slightly as he took his mobile out of his pocket.

**(10: 48 Tanith) How was your lecture? We're meeting at 1 at Cobbs.**

He fired off a quick reply, thumbs moving over the keypad. Valkyrie glanced at his under-the-desk-texting with a curious look, but didn't comment.

**(10: 50 Fletcher) I'M STILL IN THE LECTURE. It's going fine. What's Cobbs? x**

**(10: 51 Tanith) Sorry! It's a coffee house across from Main Hall. See you then**

He slipped his phone back into his pocket and gave Valkyrie a rueful look. ''Tanith's telling me when we're supposed to meet up,'' he explained. ''Want to come with us?''

She opened her mouth then paused, hesitant. He held up a hand, checking that the lecturer hadn't noticed their hushed conversation. ''Hey, if you're meeting someone, it's OK. Do any of your friends go here?''

''No,'' Valkyrie whispered, and Fletcher was startled by the raw expression that crossed her face before she ducked her head. ''My friends aren't here.''

''Right,'' he said slowly, wondering if he had done something wrong. ''So, do you want to come have coffee with us? I'll pay for your drink if you sit beside me,'' he added. Valkyrie pushed the loose strand of her hair back again. ''I'll come, then. If only so I can get back to listening to this lecture and attempt to pass this course with something resembling a good grade.''

She gave him the smallest of smiles to let him know she was joking and turned her face towards the lecturer.

Fletcher slumped back in his seat with an exhale, tapping his pencil against his half-filled page of notes. He always fell for the ones that were out of his league.

* * *

><p>''Out of your league? Fletcher, your leagues do not <em>touch<em>. They are seperate entities. You would be lucky to catch a _glimpse_ of her league.''

''She isn't out of his league by far,'' Ghastly said affably, playing the peace-keeping role as always. ''Sure, she's a pretty girl, but she doesn't like to talk much, does she?'' Skulduggery tipped his coffee cup at him, nodding wisely. ''True words, my friend. With her non-verbalism and Fletcher's impression of a parrot, together they make one normal communicative person.''

''Ghastly's right,'' China sighed, her expression neutral as she flipped through the pages of a textbook. ''Valkyrie is not a very interesting girl.''

''I wouldn't say that.'' Skulduggery looked at the object of their discussion thoughtfully, where she was paying a barista for her drink. ''There's something about her I can't figure out. And if memory serves, and we all know mine does, didn't you and Tanith hate each other passionately for the first year of your acquaintance?''

Those beautiful blue eyes turned to him. ''Completely different. I disliked Tanith. I feel complete indifference towards the girl.'' She turned her coffee cup around. ''Our server wrote his phone number on this again. Some people don't take no for an answer.''

''Give the number to Fletcher,'' Skulduggery said, taking the cup off of her. ''When things inevitably fail with his crush, he'll have a backup plan.''

Their conversation ended abruptly as Tanith appeared at their table, Valkyrie hovering behind her. Tanith sat beside Skulduggery and brightly told the other girl to pull up a chair. Fletcher eagerly dragged one over for her and Valkyrie sat down quietly.

Tanith sipped her drink and turned to the newcomer. ''So. Tell us all about yourself. We're all very curious people.''

The girl gave a small shrug. ''There isn't much to tell. I'm more curious about all of you - how long have you and Ghastly been together?''

''We've been together a while; since the year before high school ended, I think.'' The couple smiled at each other and Skulduggery leaned forward. ''Since they are now obviously lost in each other's eyes, it will be my burden to finish their tale.'' Fletcher frowned. ''Why can't I tell Valkyrie? I was around for as much of it as you were.''

''Hush, I'm talking. So,'' Skulduggery continued, ''Tanith and Ghastly had been dancing around each other for months and we were all fed up of it. Finally China, Fletcher and I managed to convince him to ask her on a date to our school dance, but by then she was going with an awful American exchange student in our form class.''

The others shuddered at the mention of the exchange student and Skulduggery nodded sagely. ''Exactly. At the end of the dance Ghastly went outside 'for some air' as he put it, but everyone knew he was going to mope because wasn't with Tanith-'' ''Hey!'' interjected Ghastly.

''But then, who should he see in the parking lot but the woman of his affections herself, and her date, who was being rather...handsy. So acting like the gentleman that he is, Ghastly rushed over to help and ended up knocking Tanith's date out stone cold.''

''He swung the first punch,'' Ghastly amended. ''I only hit him because he was making an embarassment of himself.''

''He was unconscious for three hours,'' Tanith said with a proud look at her boyfriend. ''You had impressive muscles even then.''

Valkyrie gave a slight grin, seeming to relax into her chair. ''That's quite a story.''

''It is - you should see half the stuff we get up to.'' ''Speaking of,'' Ghastly said, ''we're doing a pub crawl on Saturday. I don't know if you'll be busy that night, but it would be fun if you came.''

Valkyrie paused, undecision written over her face. ''Well, I suppose I could. I haven't got anything planned but...'' she looked at Tanith's eager face and seemed to give in. ''Yeah. I'll come.''

''Great!'' Fletcher said. ''We can arrange times and dates later in the week. Now, onto the obligatory making fun of our new lecturers. I swear, the professor I had for economics was-''

Before he could get into a description of his economics professor, Fletcher was stopped by Valkyrie's hand jerking her mug, spilling steaming coffee across the table. China hissed and snatched up the papers she had in front of her, but the others were fixated on Valkyrie.

Her eyes were fixated on the door of the coffe house and when she noticed the rest of the staring at her she twitched, grabbing her bag. ''I've got to go.''

* * *

><p>''Sorry,'' she said, rising from the table and pushing through the students. Some glared, but she ignored them, chasing what she swore was a whip of Hannah's blonde hair past the corner.<p>

She shoved through a group of wittering girls and pelted around the corner of the courtyard.

The hall beyond was empty.

Valkyrie inhaled deeply and leaned against the stone wall; not because she was out of breath, but to try and force some reason into her head along with the intake of oxygen. And though it was madness, knew she hadn't really _thought _when she saw the familiar hair, she couldn't help but run.

She took another breath, squeezing her eyes closed. Before the accident, she was a realist, pragmatic; occasionally impulsive, yes, but a steady person - the voice of reason to Ronan's dreamer. And now she couldn't be sure of who she was becoming.

A series of footsteps slapped down the hallway and Valkyrie opened her eyes as a teacher walked past, face buried in a stack of papers. She had no idea what to say to Tanith's group when she returned, and definitely not the truth...that she was chasing a dream, a memory, of what her life used to be.

* * *

><p>There was a mouth-watering smell in the dorm when Valkyrie let herself in around nine P.M. After finishing the rest of the day's classes she'd wandered around Dublin, stopping to call her parents. Desmond and Melissa had seemed placated, but she knew they weren't stupid; they worried for her, and said Gordon was upset that she hadn't called.<p>

Resolving to call her favourite uncle soon, Valkyrie didn't notice Tanith and China looking up from where they were talking at the kitchen island. Tanith gave her a hesitant smile, and China's smile was nonexistent. ''So, I'll talk to you later,'' China told the blonde girl. ''Thank you for dinner.''

China swept past Valkyrie and out the dorm without so much as a glance at her. ''She hates me, doesn't she?'' Valkyrie said. It wasn't much of a question.

''She doesn't hate you,'' Tanith sighed, putting down the spoon she was using to stir the chilli - what she had smelled when she entered the dorm. ''China just takes time, a long time, to warm up to people. And I guess she wasn't really happy about you...leaving at the coffee place.''

She gave Valkyrie a comforting look. ''Are you OK? Want to talk about it? You seemed weirded out.''

''It's nothing,'' Valkyrie said. ''Just, this is my first time living away from home and...away from my family.'' She gave what she hoped was a convincing, if tired, smile. ''It's hard being away from the people I care about, but I'm trying to get over it. Hopefully you don't think I'm too insane.''

The chilli bubbled and Tanith adjusted a few knobs on the cooker. When she looked back to Valkyrie it was with a kind expression. ''Thanks for telling me that, Valkyrie. It means a lot that you shared it with me. It must be hard to be living away from your family - when I moved to Ireland I hardly knew anyone - but I promise I'll help you feel better and so will the rest of my friends. Even China will come around eventually.''

She dished the chilli out onto to plates and brought them to where Valkyrie was standing. ''Want to eat with me? _Dirty Dancing_ is on TV, and I was going to watch, though I know you might be tired from your first day...''

Valkyrie knew Tanith was giving her a way out, an escape route to retire to her bedroom. But, she realised, she kind of wanted to stay with her and talk and watch old movies. It was painfully close to what her and Hannah's Friday nights were like, though even with that and the fact she wasn't too fond of dance films, Valkyrie found herself shrugging off her jacket.

''Sounds fun,'' she said. Tanith grinned - she probably hadn't been expecting her to say yes - and threw herself down on the sofa.

''Well, get ready for a wild ride. I like singing along to the soundtrack. China says I sound like a dying bovine.''

Sitting beside her, Valkyrie felt content. She was talking with a girl who was slowly becoming her friend, eating and joking as casually as two other roomates anywhere else in the city.

And it felt nice.

* * *

><p>The rest of the week was colder than the first day of term, and by Saturday a chill had crept into the air. ''The pub crawl isn't going to be as fun if someone catches pneumonia when they strip off,'' Tanith complained to Valkyrie as they wrapped scarves around their necks.<p>

''My uncle's favourite time of the year is Autumn - he likes all the leaves.'' Valkyrie grinned at a memory. ''Or at least he did until he tripped on them, fell down a hill and couldn't sit for a week.''

''What's your uncle like? This is the first time you've mentioned him.''

Valkyrie softened. Being able to talk about someone she loved without having to speak in the past tense was a rare thing, and something she was extremely grateful for. ''He's wonderful. Gordon - my uncle - is a writer, and ever since I was a kid he would fill my head with these amazing stories. He makes me laugh and always knows the right thing to say. Best uncle I could ask for.''

''I'm sorry,'' Tanith had paused in buttoning up her jacket, ''but did you say he was called Gordon? As in, Gordon Edgely?''

The dots clicked together in Valkyrie's head. ''Ah. You're a fan of his.''

''Oh my God! You're Gordon Edgely's niece!'' Tanith was staring at her in fascination. ''That is too brilliant. I mean, when I heard your last name I didn't think anything of it, because there must be hundreds of Edgelys in Ireland, but when you mentioned your uncle was called Gordon - oh my _God_,'' she repeated.

''He'll be glad to know he has another devout worshipper,'' Valkyrie said wryly.

Tanith danced about on the spot for a few seconds, seemingly forgetting about the pub crawl.

''But - when you said you were calling your uncle a few nights ago - was that _him_?''

''Yeah, it was. I have another uncle, but we don't really keep in contact. You can talk to Gordon next time I call him, if you really want.''

Tanith squealed and grabbed Valkyrie in a quick, tight hug. ''Thank you! Oh God, this is brilliant. I'm going to talk to Gordon Edgely. The others are going to love this! I kind of forced them to read _Braineater_, and they all really liked it. Skulduggery's favourite parts were the fighting scenes, but I really think he has a soft spot for the magic in the books...''

She continued to chatter as they left the dorm and headed down the stairs. The sky wasn't dark yet, but it had the umber hue of Autumn nights and a cool wind whipped faces and nipped at exposed skin. Valkyrie turned up her collar against it. ''Where's this pub?'' she asked Tanith, who just finished listing her top five all time favourite characters in Gordon's books.

''It's McLaren's, ten minutes walk from here,'' Tanith said as they neared the exit off university grounds. ''Relax. It'll be a calm night with my friends. I promise.''

* * *

><p>''OH MY GOD!'' Fletcher shouted into Valkyrie's ear. ''I'M SO DRUNK RIGHT NOW!''<p>

Valkyrie winced. Over the loud band and Fletcher's hollering, she was beginning to develop a headache.

''Tanith?'' she asked, raising her voice over the band, who'd begun to play _Whisky in the Jar _to great cheers from the pub patrons. Valkyrie's roomate, sitting across the wide booth, adknowleged her with a wave of her glass.

''I think I'm going to head back to the dorm. I've got a headache.''

Tanith frowned, as if trying to force her alcohol-muddled mind to focus. ''Aw, that's too bad. When did it start?''

''About three pubs ago,'' Valkyrie answered, rubbing her temple lightly. ''Will you be able to get back, or...''

Ghastly, beside his girlfriend, smiled reassuringly at her. He was, with maybe the exception of China, the least drunk out of Tanith's friends. ''I'll see her home safely, don't worry. I think Tanith put some painkillers in the cupboard under the bathroom sink, if that helps.''

''Thanks,'' Valkyrie said. She was wary of Tanith's friends, but Ghastly seemed nice. She waved a quick goodbye to Fletcher, China, Ghastly and Tanith and made her way out of the pub.

She was zipping up her coat on her way to the doorway when Skulduggery walked out of the bathroom and into her. ''Sorry,'' he said in his velvet voice, steadying her with one hand. ''I think I had just a bit too much to drink. ''

''That's fine,'' she murmured, wishing to get back to her bedroom. ''I was just leaving.'' ''Really? But you haven't touched a drop all night. Not a big drinker?''

''Not really.'' Valkyrie rememered the first time she had drunk alcohol, during a party when she was fifteen. She and Gary and Hannah had passed around a bottle they had found in Hannah's parent's drinks cabinet and giggled as their heads grew lighter and their throats burned. They finished the night throwing up over the living room carpet and Nathan had to come and help Gary and Valkyrie sneak back to their own houses.

''I haven't had the best experiences with alcohol, '' she said shortly. ''Goodnight, Skulduggery.''

She made to move to the doorway but a sudden thought struck her. She leaned closer to him, as some people had started Irish dancing near the band. She thought she saw Tanith's long hair in the middle of the group, but she couldn't be sure.

''I was wondering - why _are_ you called Skulduggery? And Ghastly definitely wasn't born with that name.'' Skulduggery laughed. ''I knew that was going to come up sooner of later. It's not some big story, really. Our group were the school pranksters,'' he said with a fond smile, ''and I was known for my skulduggery in the tricks we would play. And thus a nickname was born. And Ghastly...you've seen his scars, haven't you?''

Skulduggery was suddenly serious, and Valkyrie knew it hadn't been a question. She nodded.

''He had an accident when he was young. A man attacked his mother, but Ghastly tried to stop him and - well, you can see what happened for yourself. He took the name Ghastly after he got sick of people making fun of him for the scars, said if the fact was out in the open then maybe people would stop making it such a big deal.''

Valkyrie felt a surge of affection for Tanith's boyfriend. She knew herself how cruel people could be, and in Haggard she'd felt some awful stares and whispers in the weeks following the accident. ''He's a brave man,'' she said, breaking the silence that had fallen between them.

''He is.'' Skulduggery gave her a small smile, or at least the corners of his mouth tilted up. ''It was good talking to you, Valkyrie. Hope you get home safely.''

He moved past her towards the booth the group sat at and Valkyrie left the pub with the sense that she had, on some level, made progress with Tanith's friends.

She just wasn't sure if that scared her or not.


	4. If I Die Young

_**So, I'm back with this story! Hopefully it'll get finished before the Mayan apocalypse comes around again (but it's doubtful). Not a lot of plot development in this chapter, but there is some definite important character developments.**_

_**Felty Park is completely fictional - I have no knowledge about Dublin geography.**_

_**There's also a lot of literature references here...I just couldn't help releasing my inner poetry nerd.**_

_**Poems referenced are i carry your heart (i carry it in by ee cummings, The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge.**_

* * *

><p><em>You took my hand and said you'd love me forever<em>

_Who would've thought that forever could be severed by_

_The sharp knife of a short life_

* * *

><p><em>The bullies weren't bad every day.<em>

_But today was one of the bad days._

_Ronan had arrived at Valkyrie's with a ripped jacket and bruised arms. Desmond swore angrily and threatened to march over to the parents of the children tormenting him but Ronan had quietly pleaded him to leave it alone - his own parents hadn't achieved anything by trying to involve adults._

_They watched The Jungle Book that evening and in a sugar high decided that Ronan was definitely Mowgli and Valkyrie Balloo._

_They hugged on the doorstep before Ronan left for his own house, and he made some tease about the film._

_"Don't worry," Valkyrie said, ruffling his hair. "I'll protect you, I swear."_

_They both knew she meant more than a light joke, and he touched her arm before he went._

_It was the one promise to him she didn't keep._

* * *

><p>Her yawn steamed in the cold air, and Valkyrie juggled her books as she wiped her tired eyes.<p>

She had dreamed again last night.

The leaves kicked up by her feet as she walked were brilliant orange, red, umber, and russet: all the colours of autumn she loved, though they were fading now, harried on by the encroaching winter.

Her iPod played _Misguided Ghosts _softly in her ears and she made a mental note to remove all the songs from it that made her either want to cry or throw something when she got back to the apartment. (She wouldn't do it, she knew. _Brand New Eyes _had been Hannah's favourite album.)

After classes that day she'd decided to go out for some revision in Felty Park, a medium-sized area of green lawns and trees, before the days grew too short for her to do so. It was something to tell her parents and Gordon when she called tonight, at least, maybe enough to risk a cold for.

She crossed the pavement, stepping in a carpet of leaves drenched in a puddle. Some of the wet found its way into one of her boots and she winced at the squishing sensation. Valkyrie gingerly walked the rest of the way to the apartment, which, as the month turned colder, had turned into a refuge of warm blankets, the aroma of hot chocolate and TV soaps.

Sure enough, when Valkyrie opened the door to number 465 she was embraced by the lazy, comforting atmosphere of friendly chitchat and butternut squash over a stove.

Ghastly and Tanith were in the kitchen section, holding a ladle as they sampled the soup. Skulduggery and China were reclined on the couch, possibly the two most sophisticated young adults Valkyrie had ever seen, as Fletcher amused them with a one-sided game of charades.

Tanith heard the door shut and looked up to wave at her roomate. "This stuff is _so good_," she enthused, gesturing at the squash. She was flushed from cooking and some loose tendrils of hair were escaping the bun she'd tied them back in, the very picture of domestic bliss. Just then, she snapped her eyes over to Fletcher and hissed "Don't even think about taking one of these or God help me, I'll cut your hands off."

Fletcher sheepishly retrieved his arm from the jar of Tanith's expensive chocolates she kept on top of the bookshelf. "It was for my charade," he protested weakly.

Tanith turned back to Valkyrie, again all smiles. "Give us five minutes and we'll have it out," she said, tapping Ghastly on the hand. He immediately bent down and began to bring bowls out of the cupboard without needing any further clarification. Valkyrie's throat tightened a little at the display of the easy, in-a-relationship communication and she nodded, making to move to her room so she could dump her books and hopefully get her boot off, which was now audibly squelching with every step.

Before she could get there, however, a diversion appeared on the form of a loud English teenager. He mimed what looked like hoovering to her, and then looked exasperated when she shrugged. "Come on!" he exclaimed, turning to China and Skulduggery. "What am I?!"

"An annoyance," Skulduggery said, and made a finger gun at him. Fletcher widened his eyes and sunk slowly to the floor. '"It's true what they say," he gasped theatrically, a hand on his throat. "The brightest stars do indeed burn out soonest."

"The brightest stars are also crap at charades," Valkyrie informed him and moved around his prone body to her room. She heard Skulduggery clapping in appreciation. "And that, Fletcher, was a correct definition of your word of the day: _owned_."

Valkyrie closed the door on China's brisk laugh and Fletcher's retaliation. She pulled off her boots and placed them carefully on her radiator, stacked her books on the desk and smiled as she heard Skulduggery and Fletcher's bickering through the walls. They were, she had to admit, an excellent distraction.

* * *

><p>"I've been thinking we should have a sleepover soon."<p>

"We live in the same apartment...isn't that like one long extended sleepover?"

Tanith cackled. "Oh, no. A sleepover with popcorn and makeup and" - her eyes lit up fiendishly - "_gossip_."

Valkyrie grimaced. "I'm really not the girly type at all. Sleepovers aren't my thing."

The older girl tossed her blonde mane, and it crackled with static electricity in the cold morning air. They were walking to class the day after one of Valkyrie's best boots had almost been ruined and Fletcher had managed to spill the butternut squash soup down himself and most of Tanith's favourite chair.

"It'll be fun. China can come over - don't worry, she's not the girly, sharing secrets type either - and we'll talk, eat excellent Chinese food, do a little bonding." She gave Valkyrie a loaded gaze, which she knew to mean her failure to initiate anything other than basic companionship. She talked to Tanith and her friends, even joked with them occasion when they were together at meals or in the apartment, but they couldn't be said to really know each other. Valkyrie knew she was the one responsible for their distance, but she couldn't think about re-entering the world of friends any time soon. Or ever.

"Maybe," was all Valkyrie said in response.

* * *

><p>She had waved goodbye to Tanith and had only walked a few steps when Fletcher Renn jogged up to her. He wore a Beatles T-shirt under a military style jacket and his hair was still ridiculous. "Morning," he breathed. "Can I walk to class with you?"<p>

"Sure," she said, surprised and quite grateful he had asked for permission.

"Have you started done that Principles of Business essay for tomorrow?" He rubbed his hands together as he spoke: he'd forgotten gloves.

"I have a few sentences, and that's it." She sighed, feeling an inescapable urge to tell the truth. "If you want the truth, I really couldn't give two fucks."

Fletcher looked surprised at the profanity from her mouth before he grinned. "Luckily you only need one fuck to complete a paper for Professor Tavish. You're good to go."

Valkyrie blinked once before letting out a deep, true laugh, that seemed to echo in the air, as if the wind itself was marvelling at the bubbly sound coming from the ruined girl that was Valkyrie Cain.

She was still giggling as they entered their class, and she saw Fletcher smiling himself, eyes crinkling, as they sat down together. "Want to get coffee after the lecture?" he asked.

For the first time, she didn't hesitate before saying yes.

* * *

><p>A week passed, and Valkyrie was out in Felty Park again. There was very little leaves left for her to kick through as she ran, a sign that winter was almost upon them. The park was peaceful in the morning: Hannah had been right in saying it was one of the best times to go running, even though Gary had insisted it was the evening.<p>

She was getting too used to thinking about them in the past tense, Valkyrie realized with a slight pain.

The voice on her iPod whispered _maybe we can find new ways to fall apart _and she tore her earbuds out angrily, resting a leg on a bench as she regained her breath. She enjoyed the feeling she got while running, the power of it, the rhythm of her feet hitting the pavement and the in-out-in-out of oxygen filling her living, pumping organs thrumming with the vitality of life and youth.

She touched her iPod screen a few times and put her buds back in as _Eye of the Tiger _began playing. Now there was a song she could run to.

She started off again, keeping her pace steady, rounding the gates at the far side of the park and heading back again.

After calling home last night, first to her jubilant parents then to Gordon, she'd felt a little better about the whole 'sleepover' idea Tanith was proposing. Her mum had sounded upset when Valkyrie had told her she would be staying in Dublin over the Christmas holidays - her perfectly viable excuse was that she had a lot of coursework to do, but in all honesty she didn't want to face the town her friends had died in. Not yet.

If she had this girly, all-out emotions night with Tanith and China and told her parents about it they'd feel a lot better knowing their eldest daughter was recovering, however slightly.

With this decided, Valkyrie picked up her pace.

When she got back to the apartment, Tanith was still where she had left her, sitting on Ghastly's lap in a chair beside the fire. She had been examining their clasped hands in front of her when Valkyrie walked in, and she smiled in greeting.

"Hey, about your sleepover proposal..."

Tanith's perfunctory grin became widened to show teeth. "Yes?"

Valkyrie steeled herself. "Do you think tomorrow night would be good?"

* * *

><p>"I hear you're staying at Tanith and Valkyrie's place tonight."<p>

China sighed as Skulduggery fell into step beside her. "You heard correctly. Tanith's using it as a bonding opportunity. I'm not so sure, but she promised me there would be food from that brilliant Chinese on Shawn Street."

Skulduggery nodded, eyes ahead as they strolled through the campus. There were less leaves falling now, and the blue scarf he had wrapped around his neck was coming into use more and more frequently. "Be nice to her, China."

They entered the building, empty save for a few other students. It was an early Monday morning, a time when only the high-achievers had courses that were too complex for anyone else to dare venture into.

"I am nice."

"You know what I mean."

Skulduggery stopped outside his class, one of the highly complicated ones for his criminology course. He looked at her expectantly, hand on the doorknob, and she knew he wouldn't enter until she replied.

"I will be nice to the best of my abilities and I will not sneer at nor belittle Valkyrie Cain, no matter how much of an annoyance I may find her."

Skulduggery looked gratified. "That's all I wanted to hear. Valkyrie seems fragile. You have to be careful." His hand twisted on the door. "I hope you're not expecting a thank you."

"I wasn't expecting you to give me one."

He rolled his eyes and entered the classroom, but both he and China were content as they carried on with their day.

* * *

><p>"It's the end of the world as we know it," Tanith sang along to the radio, taking out a bottle of wine from the fridge. "And I feel fine..."<p>

"My dad's always liked REM," Valkyrie said, watching her from her seat at the kitchen counter.

"I never really listened to them before I met Ghastly," Tanith admitted, closing the fridge door. "He's a fan."

She checked her phone and frowned. "China should be here by now. She's probably cornered her professor again to hassle him about some mistake he made in his lecture."

"She's done that before?"

"Oh, yeah. China's the smartest person I know, except for maybe Skulduggery. Geniuses, the both of them, but she's less likely than him to be forgiving of those who aren't. Especially those who are meant to be her teachers."

At that moment the unlocked door to the dorm opened and China walked in, immaculate as always in a crisp white shirt and flawlessly pressed blue skirt. She held a stack of books which she deposited on the kitchen counter along with her bag.

"Freedman misquoted Plath," she said. "Idiot."

"I feel truly sorry for your professors, I really do," Tanith told her while pouring wine into three glasses. "I like to imagine they refer to you as THE DEVIL ONE and quake with fear when they see your icy gaze sweep past them in disdain as they mess up a line of poetry.

Plath is one of China's favourites," Tanith explained to Valkyrie. "She tends to go for older stuff, but there are a few modern poets she likes."

"I get it," said Valkyrie, determined to contribute, at least to this night so she could truthfully tell her parents she had. "I really loved doing Sylvia Plath in high school English.' And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited.'"

China, who had been sipping from her wine glass, looked at her with something a little like surprise. "You read poetry?"

Valkyrie paused, unsure of what her answer should be. She couldn't say she had any great fondness for reading poetry, one that she endorsed in her leisure time, but she had enjoyed it in school. She was pretty sure that this was a kind of unofficial test for acceptance by China, who had until this moment been the least welcoming towards her of Tanith's friends. Not that Valkyrie had actually encouraged any welcoming, but still...

"Choose wisely," Tanith said with clear amusement at Valkyrie's hesitation, leaning against the cooker. "She may seem like a cold-hearted bitch, but her vital organ in fact beats for literature and she will kill you if you insult any of the classics."

"I like _The Iliad_," Valkyrie said at last.

China looked at her for a few beats, and Valkyrie had the uncomfortable sensation of feeling like a mouse trapped under a hawk's sharp gaze. "Most people prefer _The Odyssey _to _The Iliad_," China said without any discernible emotion. Then:

"I'm not one of those people."

Valkyrie breathed an internal sigh of relief, and China asked Tanith if she had ordered any Kung Po chicken. It seemed that she had been deemed worthy.

* * *

><p>As it turned out, discovering Valkyrie appreciated quality prose was just the impetus to test whether she was worthy. Throughout the evening China seemed determined to try to trip her up. While Tanith was painting Valkyrie's toenails black (the only colour Valkyrie had permitted after a solid five minutes of shaking her head at various shades of neon varnishes) with a steady, practiced hand, and discussing the finer points of Ghastly as a boyfriend, China seemed surprisingly agreeable with going down memory lane.<p>

"He's so romantic, though you wouldn't think it. I guess I trained him well. He got better towards the end of high school, didn't he, China?"

"Mmm. Remember that period in our last year when Ghastly would always leave you the Post-It notes with poetry scribbled on? Always things like 'I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart).'"

Valkyrie noticed China's sharp gaze on her and decided to chip in. "Isn't that cummings? It's nice, though my favourite line from it is 'this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart.' I loved that poem, though I didn't like a lot of his others. Leaving out capitalizations never made much sense to me."

"Ooh," Tanith cooed squealed excitedly. "She knows her poetry, China."

The black-haired woman said nothing, and continued to sort Tanith's nail polish bottles in some complicated system that took height, colour and volume into accordance.

They moved onto the subject of schoolwork, as most college-kid conversations seemed to inevitably do. China again proved her obvious brilliance by declaring she was doing a double major and minor - majoring in English Literature and Classical History and minoring in Iconography and Antiquities - and managed to swing the conversation around to authors. "Preferred Tolstoy work?" she asked, looking straight at Valkyrie with her razored gaze.

Tolstoy. A thud in her chest, but at least it wasn't a knife this time. Nathan's favourite author.

"_War and Peace_." She'd only read half of it, Nathan's battered copy, but she hoped that it counted.

China nodded, and asked Valkyrie to pass her the egg fried rice. She seemed to have passed this round.

When Valkyrie was stretched out on the floor letting her nails dry, Tanith dropped beside her with a box of sweet and sour pork and two forks. China was in the bathroom, and it seemed Tanith was using the opportunity to congratulate Valkyrie.

"You're doing great tonight. I know you had your reservations about doing this, but it's good to just sit and talk about superficial stuff sometimes."

Valkyrie nodded around a mouthful of the pork. Tanith had been right; it was excellent.

"I am having a good time," she said truthfully, because it was nice to only be thinking about stopping Tanith from attacking her with blusher instead of her dead friends. "...but, and I hope I'm not being stupid about this, it seems like China is kind of testing me."

The blonde sighed, twirling her fork in her hand. "You noticed that, huh? China is wary. She doesn't trust people easily - I'm pretty sure the guys and me are the only people she trusts to any degree. And maybe her brother."

"You're saying I'm a threat to her?" It felt laughable to Valkyrie; that beautiful, fantastically intelligent China could be threatened by Valkyrie, when it was Valkyrie who was at threat from this charming, if strange, group of friends. (She hadn't forgotten her apparent sighting of Hannah two weeks ago.)

Tanith seemed to ponder this. "Not a threat, exactly, but you're an unknown. China likes, and is used to, knowing most things so you are a teensy bit of a frustration to her. She finds you unpredictable, and there's been no-one else that's come really close to our little circle since we were around sixteen."

At Valkyrie's worried look, she smiled, patting her knee. "Don't worry. We all think you're great, and China will too once she's spent some time with you. She can be the iciest girl you've ever met until she knows you, and then once she does she's the most protective friend in the world."

"I had a friend like that," Valkyrie said through suddenly cold lips.

If something changed in her expression, Tanith didn't see it. "Oh? Someone back home?"

"Yeah. Something like that."

Up until now Valkyrie had been so reluctant to share anything about her past - or, really her life in general - that she couldn't blame Tanith for trying to dig a little deeper. "A girl? Boy?"

"Girl. Hannah." Valkyrie took a huge forkful of pork after that, and Tanith seemed to be sated. However, the curiosity not entirely dimmed in her eyes showed she still wanted to know, to find out. Valkyrie couldn't begrudge her that - before the accident, if she was in Tanith's place, she would have tried to find out everything about her mysterious roommate. Solving puzzles had always been Valkyrie's thing, but now she was more content to let things stay buried.

Her companionable silence with Tanith ended when China emerged from the bathroom wearing some sort of silky kimono that looked like it cost thousands. Her hair was wet from the shower and tied in a twist behind her head.

"You've got some works on the shelves beside your bathroom," she said, sitting down neatly in an armchair. "Since I know all of Tanith's books, I assume they're yours, Valkyrie. I noticed Coleridge, Dostoevsky, Yeats...you have good taste." A compliment. Valkyrie felt ready to faint away into her pork. "I love Coleridge. Your copies of him look very valuable."

"My uncle passed them onto me. He loves reading and collecting stuff - I think the ones he gave me are second edition."

This time it was China who looked like she was going to faint. It was an odd look on her. "Second edition? You must be joking!" Tanith patted her shoulder. "There now, China. Getting sexually excited over books is the quickest way to get Valkyrie judging you."

"Nope - I mean, I'm not joking. I can ask him about the other compilations when I next talk to him, if you want. I'm not sure how old the Yeats is, but that's obviously newer than the Coleridge."

It was another chance to test Valkyrie, but China's tones indicated her resolve against Valkyrie was clearly weakening.

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last..."

"Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" Valkyrie finished.

China nodded in the first true acknowledgement she had given all night. Tanith looked as if she could burst from happiness.

"_Breakfast at Tiffany's, anyone_?" she asked, already sliding the DVD into the player.

Apparently the night was a success.

* * *

><p>It was the next day, when China was shuffling her English Lit books as she walked down the stairs leading to Tanith and Valkyrie's dorm that she found it.<p>

Amongst the fresh, crisp-smelling university course books, Valkyrie had placed a shabby, stained one bearing the title 'Samuel Coleridge'. China flipped a few pages open and grinned. It was her favourite poem by Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

A piece of paper fell out of the book, disturbed by her ruffling through the pages, and landed at her feet. China bent to pick it up.

_I texted my Uncle Gordon last night. It's definitely second edition, and he agreed with me that it should live with someone who can appreciate it more than I do. Enjoy._

_- V_

* * *

><p>"How did last night go?" Skulduggery asked China as they lined up for coffee before their nine A.M. lectures.<p>

"It was better than I expected, certainly."

He reached for a sachet of sugar. "And Valkyrie?"

China looked straight ahead when she said "She's read Tolstoy," as if that settled everything.

Skulduggery just smiled.


	5. Ghosts That We Knew

_**Whoops. I guess this fic has transformed from angsty!Valkyrie to a college AU. This update has less interaction between Valkyrie and the group, but has a lot of appearances by ALMIGHTYUNCLEGORDONEDGELY and Melissa and Desmond. Also in the way of appearances, look forward to a few familiar faces making cameos in the next chapter.**_

* * *

><p><em>But the ghosts that we knew will flicker from view<em>

_And we'll live a long life_

* * *

><p><em>"I can't believe we're playing Manhunt," Valkyrie grumbled. "How old are we?"<em>

_"You were about eighty, last time I checked." Gary's grin offset his words. "Come on, it'll be fun. Anything to see Nathan getting all red and flustered when he watches Hannah run."_

_"Fine. But I'm staying here." They were up a tree in a small copse behind Haggard, hiding out from Roran, who was the hunter._

_"I'll come get you in a bit. You'll have to make a noise if you want me to find you, though. All the trees look the same."_

_She rolled her eyes. "You're hopeless at navigation."_

_"It's one of my many charms." Gary leaned forward and kissed her cheek. "I'll be back soon. Try not to miss me too much. I know eighty-year-olds can form strong attachments-"_

_She punched his shoulder, and he smirked as he swung his legs over the branch, saluted her then jumped down. That was an image Valkyrie held with her, the back of Gary's head as he ran off down into the streets of Haggard, the setting sun turning the trees gold and resting on his shoulders and tips of his hair, almost like a halo, before he vanished from sight._

Make a noise and I'll come and find you_, he'd said, yet Valkyrie screamed until her nails were bloody and her dry mouth would sound no more, and Gary didn't appear._

* * *

><p>Winter had well and truly arrived. The blanket of autumn's dying leaves had been replaced with one of snow: watery slush on pavements but still nearly intact on the Trinity campus.<p>

Fletcher, Skulduggery and Ghastly had scrambled into Valkyrie and Tanith's dorm early one morning a fortnight before the Christmas holidays to tell them to get up and outside because they were going to build the best snow fort ever seen in Dublin. Valkyrie, who had been awoken from a dream about long, hot summers in Haggard, had groaned and turned over in her bed at the sound of loud voices outside her room, massaging her closed eyelids with her hands.

She had sat with China, both sipping on coffee as the older female edited essays she had due in, and watched as the other four made half a snow fort and gave up when Fletcher fell and crushed one of the main walls. Tanith made her pancakes with extra syrup when they got back into the apartment a few hours later, a sort of non-verbalised thank-you for coming out with them. Valkyrie appreciated it.

Now there was only three days left of school before the break, and plans were being made.

"Are you absolutely _sure _you don't want to come home? Alice is missing you - we're all missing you - and Gordon promised me he's wearing his elf hat during Christmas dinner."

Valkyrie looked at the phone fondly as her mother's voice rattled through it. She was lying on her bedroom floor, feet up against her bed, wearing her biggest jumper to combat the lack of heat.

"I'm sure. There's so much work I have to do, it's hardly a holiday we're getting," which was very true "-and my friends and I have made some plans."

She could almost see Melissa's face light up at the mention of that word. _Friends_. "Well, I know you've been mentioning your roomate and her group recently - your dad and I are so happy you're meeting new people..." She tailed off, her ellipsis stretching into silence. She and Valkyrie knew they had come close to the taboo subject of the accident that they hadn't broached since she'd left for university, and they both knew the other did too.

Valkyrie had no intention of talking about it any time soon. "I'm coming home for New Year's," she said hurridly to fill the pause. "I can't wait. I got you all really cool stuff from downtown, Alice is - oh, hold on a sec."

The door had just opened, revealing Tanith's tousled hair as she peered around the doorway. "Bad time?" she mouthed, but Valkyrie shook her head.

"I've got to go, Mum," she spoke into the phone. "No, I'll call you tomorrow. Bye. You too."

She hung up and looked sideways at Tanith from her position on the floor. "What's up?"

The blonde slipped into the one, folding herself onto the bed with a few sweeps of her dancer's limbs. "How's your mum?"

"She's good. Still upset I'm not coming home for Christmas, but I know I'll be video calling them for most of the day itself. It'll be a surprise if they haven't set up a place at the table for me with a laptop open to Skype on the table."

Tanith laughed and began to say something, but was interrupted by the door to the apartment banging open. "My music for Dvorak's New World Symphony is missing, and I need it now," Skulduggery's voice announced, still velvet even in its loudness.

It wasn't entirely clear to Valkyrie what he was looking for, so at her confused look Tanith clarified. "Skulduggery's more of a pianist but he dabbles with the cello - naturally he's still better than everyone else at it - and he must have left his music here. Two minutes."

She got up from the bed and left the room. Through the closed door Valkyrie could see her conversing with Skulduggery, who was shaking his head. His expression brightened up as Tanith rifled through the mess on the living-room table and came up with several sheafs of paper, which he snatched then immediately started groaning about the coffe stains on them.

"Sorry about this, Valkyrie," he called through to her, eyes not wavering from his examination of the music. Valkyrie started. She hadn't known he was aware of her being in the apartment. She managed to call "It's fine," back. He acknowledged her with a wave towards the direcion of her bedroom before addressing Tanith.

"I'll be off now, and let you get back to doing whatever it is you do when I'm not around."

"Cry, mostly," she said dryly.

"Oh, I know. Ghastly wants to know if seven is fine for dinner?"

"Sure. Tell him I'll see him there." She patted Skulduggery's shoulder as he excused himself and she made her way back to Valkyrie's bedroom. "Sorry about the disruption. I wanted to have a proper talk with you but now I'm short on time and I'm meeting the others for dinner...I know you said you were going to be busy tonight so I didn't invite you, but you can always come if you want..." The expression of guilt on Tanith's face was enough to make Valkyrie herself feel guilty. _This girl is too nice._

She assured Tanith that talking to her mother and sorting out everything for the holidays had taken up a lot of her time, and as she shifted into a more comfortable position than the floor, she noticed Tanith's eyes catching on the photo beside her bed, the one she'd asked a question about months ago and Valkyrie had evaded.

"Are you _sure_ you're going to be OK staying here alone? I hate the thought of you spending Christmas Day by yourself. The only other people on campus will the the really nerdy maths students and the sad teachers who have no-one wating for them at home. And some of them are just plain weird. Professor Guild is more than a little strange."

Valkyrie had to agree with her on that point, but she again made assurances that she was perfectly fine with staying by herself and was looking forward to New Year's with her family. She asked Tanith to say hello to Skulduggery etc. and Tanith eventually left her room to get ready with a slightly-awkward hug. (Valkyrie was severely out of practice.)

Once Tanith had rushed out the door at five past seven, leaving a string of curses in her wake, Valkyrie had, oddly, not known what to do. She had grown accustomed to being alone by her own choice, and suddenly it felt strange. After reading three chapters of her business textbook, washing the dishes and tidying her desk, she leaned on the ledge of her bedroom's window. It allowed her a view down into the green campus that separated the halls of accomodation from the university buildings and the few students who were brave enough to cross it in the current conditions. Rain was falling softly, but the temperature wasn't low enough so that it was snowing.

The snow already on the ground and in the trees was highlighted by a lamp set against the wall of the dorms, and for an instant Valkyrie jerked back from the window, heart racing and mouth dry, as the light glanced off the head of a boy laughing with a friend. He had his head tilted to the sky, eyes crinkling, and he was so _Gary _for a moment that Valkyrie was struck by the urge to run out of her building, touch his cheek and make sure it was him.

But after that time in the coffee shop she knew better, so she only pressed her hands against her eyes - _don't cry you've done enough crying for a lifetime _- and went through to the living room to put on the TV.

She had been sitting there for ten minutes, dull eyes fixed on the screen with no clue what was showing on it, when her phone vibrated gently in her jeans poket. She fished it out with slightly shaking hands and saw she had one message from Tanith.

**(7: 43 Tanith) So far skulduggery has insulted our waitress' name, china her shoes, ghastly has punched someone and fletcher spilled wine across the table. Im starting to see why u want to spend christmas alone.**

Attached was a photo Tanith had clearly taken with her phone, capturing the table she sat at. China was examining her nails, Ghastly was touching his bruised jaw with a pained look and Skulduggery had been captured mid-shout at a frantic Fletcher, who had piled a wad of napkins onto a dark red stain across the white tablecloth. Tanith herself, as the photographer of the mad tableu, was very close to the camera, and was pulling a face of abject terror: bottom lip bitten, one hand against her throat and eyes huge and terrified.

And, inexplicably, Valkyrie felt a little better.

* * *

><p>Christmas had been a total non-event in that Valkyrie woke up at 11 AM, edited a few essays assigned as winter break revision, did her laundry, replied to texts she had from Tanith, Skulduggery, and even China, and ate a great deal of potato chips.<p>

(She had also been right to Tanith about her parents setting up a Skype video call place for her at the dinner table.)

Later in the evening, she watched the Doctor Who with a determination not to remember how Nathan's love for his favourite show had always boiled over during Christmas, and how through Gary had tried to hide it, he was almost as excited as Nathan was.

She fell asleep trying to forget that in four days, she would be seeing their ghosts everywhere she looked.

* * *

><p>Gordon's chaffeur hat and sign with her name was the first thing Valkyrie saw when she stepped off the bus at Haggard. Her favourite uncle wrapped her up in a hug and took the bag she had slung over her shoulder.<p>

"I convinced Melissa and Des to let me pick you up," he explained of her parents' absence. "They have their hands full; Alice is teething and screaming blue murder. She reminds me a lot of you." He winked at her and Valkyrie knocked his shoulder against his. Over the past six months one of the only solid points in her spinning life had been her and Gordon's easy banter, just as normal over the telephone and after the accident as it had always been. "Shove off," she said good-naturedly, cheered by Gordon's presence.

They loaded her rucksack and suitcase into the boot of his car and Valkyrie slid into the passenger seat while he started up the engine. "I've written another story," he said casually. "It involves swordfighting, angel dust, homosexual underground clubs, body-snatching shadows and a badass teenage heroine."

"Ooh. How do the homosexual clubs come into it?"

"They're the main setting for the novel. I imagined them full of smoke and dim lighting, very fifties. The heroine works at one but then her boss is killed and she's pulled into an even deeper underworld of shadow creatures and angels falling out of the sky."

"Sounds cool."

"Naturally. I wrote it."

"Please tell me there's at least one swordfight in the club."

"Of course! Whisky bottles being smashed, scantily clad girls dancing onstage and graphic depictions of pool cues as weapons. It's followed in a few chapters by the heroine's bloody death, but overall it's a very uplifting scene."

"You better have a draft for me to look over."

"Well, I can't send it to the editors without my best proofreader, can I?"

"I think I should start charging you."

"I think I should start talking to your cousins more."

"You can't stand Carol and Crystal."

"You're completely right," Gordon said cheerfully as he turned the car down into her street. "Awful children."

* * *

><p>Parties were fun, Ghastly had decided. While he normally avoided parties like the hormone and cheap beer-fuelled cesspits they usually were, he was definitely enjoying this one.<p>

It might have had something to do with the whiskey he'd drunk. And the blonde looking positively incandescent on his arm.

Whatever. Ghastly was having fun.

This New Year the friends had decamped to Tanith's place in Dublin. Her parents, who had taken verywell-paying jobs in Ireland a few years back, owned a lavish apartment and as they were at a party of their own and Tanith's brother was still off traversing the world on his Great Gap Year Adventure, Tanith had been the only Low left to hold the fort.

Naturally, she'd proceeded to invite everyone she knew to see out the year in style - and Tanith knew a lot of people. Ghastly didn't think her parents would be mad, though; they were the sort to have been manning the drinks table if they hadn't been out.

A few of Tanith's dance friends came over to say hello, so Ghastly kissed his girlfriend's head and left to look around for anyone he recognised.

China was in the corner, engrossed in a fierce debate over Keats with a boy from one of her classes. Ghastly left her to it. He'd let her embarass the guy in peace.

It took him a further ten minutes (Tanith's apartment was really big and he was rather drunk) but he found Skulduggery, Fletcher and Eachan in the kitchen, leaning against the counter with a bowl of Doritos.

"Hey," he said in greeting. "Two hours until midnight."

"Wooo," said Eachan, who had the look of the vaguely stoned.

Skulduggery cocked his head to the side, looking at Ghastly. "You're very drunk. I had hoped not to be the only one sober this New Year's, but even China partook of some fancy mixture. I'm disappointed."

Fletcher shook his head while taking a handful of Doritos. "Not me. I'm sober since October. Remember you made me the badge?"

"You made the badge," Ghastly reminded him. "And you've got a half-empty beer beside you."

Fletcher noticed the drink and made an 'aww' sound.

He looked sad, and someone as puppyish as Fletcher had no right being sad in Ghastly's eyes. He gave the younger boy a clumsy hug. "It's OK. A two-month streak wasn't much to be proud of anyway."

Eachan murmured something about hating bullshit Select Commitees and slid down the cooker, ending up in a snoring heap on the floor.

"What's up with him?" Fletcher asked.

Skulduggery shook his head wisely, reaching into the cupboard and began brewing some tea. Only Skulduggery, Ghastly thought, would take tea at a New Year's party. "The political science majors had a big exam last week. Eachan's still scarred from it. It makes me glad I didn't choose to do the course, despite all the pleading letters I received from the department head begging me to take it."

"That's a lie," Ghastly said.

"No it's not! All the departments want me! I'm beginning to feel like a high-class call girl. Should I start charging my professors?"

"Oh, I have a test as soon as we get back," Fletcher interrupted. "I still need to revise for it but I need to do it well or Valkyrie will think I'm dumb and then she won't date me."

"Well, she might not date you anyway," Skulduggery said pointedly, getting out the milk.

Ghastly saw that he would, as always, have to be the reasonable friend. "There's every likelihood that she'd say yes if you asked her out, Fletcher. She's guarded but she definitely likes you."

"Yes, but does she like me or does she _like _me?" Fletcher suddenly wailed, throwing himself against Ghastly's shoulder.

"Have you got laid recently?" Ghastly asked, patting the boy's back awkwardly. There was only so much comfort he could give. "You need to get laid."

Fletcher frowned. "I've gotten laid recently."

"Making sex noises over that red velvet cheesecake last week doesn't count."

"Don't be mean, Skulduggery," Ghastly said, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice. Fletcher sniffled a little then knealt to the floor and curled up in a heap beside Eachan. Before long the two boys were snoring.

"Are you fine with looking after them?" Skulduggery asked. "There was a few people I said I'd try to meet if they came to the party, and I'm pretty sure Fletcher will start biting my ankles when he wakes up."

Ghastly waved him away. "Sure. I'll meet you and the girls for the countdown, with Fletcher if I can manage it."

Skulduggery clapped him on the shoulder and made his way out of the kitchen, still holding his steaming cup of Earl Grey. Ghastly sighed, put a tea cosy on top of Fletcher (who was now spooning Eachan) and pulled out Angry Birds on his phone.

* * *

><p>After dinner and a spirited game of charades won by Gordon, Valkyrie made her way upstairs. She settled on her window ledge and looked out across the garden, feeling blanketed by the memories that she associated with her room. There was Nathan hiding under her bed during summer games of Manhunt, Gary climbing up to her window to say goodnight, Hannah trying on outfits in front of her wardrobe's mirror.<p>

It felt suffocating.

Valkyrie leaned her head against the cool pane, listening to the muffled sounds of voices from downstairs. Someone exited the living room; the sound of the feet coming upstairs told her it was her dad.

There was a soft knock on her door, and Valkyrie called a reply. Desmond stepped into her room, closing the door over behind him. He seemed slightly awkward amongst her faded All Time Low posters and blue Star Wars quilt. She associated her dad with her past, Valkyrie realized, and felt a wave of sadness and nostalgia for something she wasn't even sure she wanted any more.

Desmond eventually settled on the bed, looking at her precarious perch against the window. "Are you OK? Being back?"

Valkyrie knew he really meant, and loved him for not saying it directly. It was hard to miss the ugly marks in the walls where paint had peeled away with the photos she'd furiously ripped down after the accident, but Desmond didn't look at them. He kept his gaze firmly on his daughter, a familiar mix of pride and concern in his eyes.

"It's strange," she admitted. "Being back home. It's not the same as it was before university."

She bit her bottom lip nervously.

"Without the others."

Her father's expression, to his credit, didn't change, despite it being the first time in months she'd directly referred to what had happened; and even then she had been hysterically sobbing.

"I imagine it must be." His tone was gentle, un-prying.

"I keep on seeing them everywhere. Everything here reminds me of them. I even see them in Dublin. It's...scaring me." She had never liked talking about her weaknesses, but right now in her quiet bedroom with so many memories it felt like a shrine, and Desmond looking at her with patient eyes, it seemed like a time for truth. "Haggard isn't the same. It's not the town of my childhood without the people from my childhood in it, you know what I mean? It's like everything's been shifted slightly to the left, not enough to be visible but enough for me to know something's wrong."

She exhaled, not sure if she felt better for revealing a part of the emotions that writhed inside her.

Desmond cleared that up when he got up and embraced her. He smelled like baby formula, brandy and the aftershave he'd always worn. Valkyrie leaned into his embrace, trying to inhale as much of the scent of home as she could.

"We're so proud of you," her dad's voice rumbled against her chest. "Me, your mum, Gordon. You're a great kid, and we were so worried-" he took a quick breath, as if he had been about to cry, and patted her back clumsily. "We still are worried, but you seem better. That's all that matters."

He let her go, holding her arms as he looked at her. Valkyie tried to look as better as possible. After a few moments, he touched her hair with a smile. "Come back down soon. I think Gordon's going to start singing Irish ballads, and we all know it isn't a proper Edgley gathering until that happens."

"The horror," Valkyrie said, and her dad laughed as he left.

She took a couple more minutes to lean against her window, soaking in the memories without really trying to remember them. She wasn't completely better yet.

(She didn't want to think about her friends and how vivid, how alive they were in her memories, spilling over with their vitality, but she could all too clearly recall the weeks after her accident when she'd lain nearly comatose in her bed, filled with so much grief she was choking on it. The sound of her mum and Ronan's crying from downstairs. Gordon shaking her shoulder - "_Come on Valkyrie, say something, please-"_ and running his hands over his face. Silence that was as loud as the laughter and chatter that had come before it.)

Valkyrie flinched at what she remembered, and the potential of all the things she didn't want to. But she knew she was living for more than herself now, so she pushed down hard on the memories and shut her bedroom door five minutes after Desmond had.

* * *

><p>There were no tears the day she said goodbye, but her parents' eyes were suspiciously bright as they hugged her. Alice beat tiny fists in the air and garbled the few words she knew.<p>

Just before she stepped on the bus Gordon pressed a package into her hands, wrapped shoddily in brown paper. "Just something for you to look at," he whispered in her ear.

She waved at them until the bus pulled away and her arm hurt from the effort.

When she arrived back on the Trinity campus in Dublin, it was late evening, and nearly dark outside; the gloaming, as Gordon would call it.

When she struggled with putting the key into her dorm room door and balancing her bag and suitcase, the brown package fell out of the former, forgotten about while she'd slept on the bus. She picked it up at the same time she pushed the door open, and was greeted by a round of cheers.

Tanith and company were buzzing about the apartment, and there was a smell straight from the kitchens of heaven that surrounded her.

"Food," was all she said, and Tanith laughed from where she stood with her apron on and a spoon in her hand. "We're making curry. I thought it would be done by time time you got back, but it'll be ready in ten minutes, promise."

Fletcher trotted up to her and carried her bags into her room despite her protestations. Skulduggery toasted her with a mug of tea from the couch as she walked past.

She realized two things as the door swung shut before Fletcher: one, she was actually glad to return to a full apartment, and two, the package Gordon had given her was on the bed.

She'd never been one for patience, so she ripped open the brown wrapping as soon as she'd sat down. Inside was a stack of paper, held together by a few staples. The first page was nearly blank, save for nine words:

_And the Darkness Rained Upon Them - Gordon Edgely._

She flipped the page over, eyes darting across to the first sentence of the novel before she noticed that there were scribbled letters on the back of the first page, obviously added after the manuscript had been typed up.

Her uncle was a writer, a brilliant one, and she should have expected it; but again, she was surprised by how sometimes, Gordon knew exactly the right words to say.

_If you are going through hell, keep going._


	6. Shake it Off

_**As always, thank you to everyone for your positive feedback! Also, I like writing Shavel. Like, a lot. Which is maybe why this is such a big chapter.**_

* * *

><p><em>And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back<em>

_So shake him off_

* * *

><p><em>As always, spring in Haggard was distinctly underwhelming.<em>

_The rain turned the houses grey, the sun never appeared to show off the newly green fields and people tended to stay indoors with toast and TV to weather it out._

_This year, Ronan had other plans._

_He had left Valkyrie a nearly indicipherable voicemail, from which she only got the message to meet him at the pier and dress warmly._

_The others were all waiting when she arrived in her biggest black hoodie, hands stuffed securely into the pockets._

_"The pier, really?" she asked Ronan, casting her eye about the overcast sky and steel-coloured water thrashing against the pier. "I'm fine with us going diving here in summer, but I'm don't know how kindly Health and Safety will look on the same activity in practically hurricane conditions."_

_"He has a _plan,_" Hannah said, exaggerating the last word. Valkyrie raised her eyebrows and the girls 'oooohed' at one another before they turned back to Ronan, who was now looking extremely grumpy._

_"We're kidding, Ronan," Valkyrie laughed, pulling him against her. "Tell us your mighty plan."_

_"You won't think it's so mighty once you hear it. It's definitely not worth the sea sucking us to our deaths on Haggard Beach. I can just see the headlines now: Four Die in Tragic Beach-Related Accident. Friend explains 'I just wanted to play baseball!'"_

_Hannah, who had been frowning at Gary's sarcastic diatribe - he never had been a fan of cold weather - now looked scandalised. "I came out here, risking pneumonia and wet hair to play baseball?"_

_"I really want to play," begged Ronan. "The beach is the perfect place. It's big enough and we won't injure anyone because everybody's indoors. I've got the bats and everything with me. Please?"_

_The other four immediately softened. Refusing Ronan anything was a near-impossible task. And the boy knew it._

_"Of course we'll play," Nathan said, taking off his glasses and sliding them into his pocket. "Now, how do you want to do this?"_

_That was how they ended up spread over the beach an hour later, jeans pasted to their legs with sand and salt water. Gary was shouting "I'm fourteen! I'm too young to die!" as he plunged into the surf to reclaim the ball._

_He eventually plucked it out of the sea and threw it to Nathan, who really didn't have the best eyesight with his glasses off, and promptly dropped it._

_Hannah was standing beside Nathan, the two other members of the fielding team, and she grinned while he swore and bent down to pick it up._

_''Nice catch,'' she said, turning her collar up against the wind._

_Nathan looked at her, eyes twinkling as he picked the ball up and turned around. ''Nice legs.''_

_Ronan and Valkyrie burst into helpless laughter at Hannah's shocked face as Nathan strode off to pitch with an incredibly smug expression; Ronan doubled over when Nathan shot them a quick wink._

_Later, they piled onto the couch in Hannah's living room with three seperate duvets and a bowl of freshly made popcorn to watch _Father Ted_. Nathan and Hannah were sitting together, doing their best to ensure the other didn't notice them staring._

_Halfway through the episode, Ronan and Gary left with the excuse of making more popcorn (over half the bowl was left). Valkyrie got up to join them a few minutes later, leaving Hannah and Nathan looking fixatedly at the TV in a very awkward silence._

_"Thank God," Gary said when Valkyrie emerged into the kitchen. He and Ronan were sitting on the counter eating from the popcorn bowl between them. "I didn't know if you would take the come-on-let's-leave-them-alone hint."_

_"I'm appalled," grinned Valkyrie as she reached for a handful of popcorn. "Ignore a hint encouraging hanky panky between two of our best friends? Never."_

_Ronan and her slapped a high-five and Gary watched approvingly. "I've taught you something after all. Now let's go see if they're kissing yet. You both have to pay me if they are."_

_"That makes no sense," said Ronan, wiping his hands on the kitchen towel, but he and Valkyrie sneaked after their friend, who was in the hall peering through a crack in the doorway into the living room._

_"I am amazing," he announced in a triumphant whisper. "I am a God. You now have to call me God Gary."_

_"I guess they're kissing then?" asked Valkyrie, squeezing her head around Gary's elbow. Ronan's 'awwww' from somewhere beside her knee confirmed what Gary had crowed about: Hannah and Nathan were turned away from them, but the TV was ignored, the duvets were pooled around their feet, and they were definitely kissing._

_"I knew this was going to happen soon," Ronan sighed happily. "Especially after the whole 'nice legs' comment."_

_With that, Hannah's hand came up from where it was resting against Nathan's neck and flipped her middle finger up to where the three were crouched in the doorway._

_They fell back with wide smirks and returned to the kitchen. "She has ears like a bat," Valkyrie said. "We're lucky she didn't throw anything. But I guess she was a bit preoccupied with Nathan's mouth."_

_"They're going to date for five years, then he's going to propose," Ronan began. Gary and Valkyrie side-eyed one another with similar exasperated, if fond, looks. They knew when Ronan was about to go off on one of his long, dreamy spiels. Gary made to put on the kettle. They would be in the kitchen for a long time._

_"Of course, they won't get married until they're both out of university. It'll be longer for Nathan, since he's going to do medicine, but they'll wait, because Hannah will want a proper wedding. Of course we're going to sit in the front row, and we're going to be the first ones to dance with them. I'll grab myself a dapper waiter, and you two will cut a fine figure waltzing together..."_

_Gary, grinning, caught Valkyrie's eye, and he mouthed "Try to waltz with me and I'll kill you." She choked and put a hand over her mouth to stop her laughter bubbling out._

_Hannah and Nathan eventually emerged from the living room twenty minutes later, both with furiously messed hair and blushing cheeks._

_Valkyrie never danced at their wedding._

* * *

><p>When Valkyrie entered Cobbs after her run on Friday afternoon, she was waved over by Skulduggery, Ghastly and Fletcher, who were sitting with two males she didn't recognise.<p>

She picked up her coffee and walked over to them, tucking a few strands of hair into her ponytail uneasily. She'd never really hung out with Tanith's friends when Tanith wasn't there.

The males all had their own drinks: Fletcher with his triple espresso, extra milk and sugar, Skulduggery with his customary tea and Ghastly with his green chai latte were all familiar. The cappucino of the black-haired, broad-shouldered boy and the cinnamon-scented latte of his brown-haired companion were less so.

"Hello," the brown-haired one said cheerfully. "I don't think we've met. I'm Erskine, and this is Anton."

"'Sup," said the one identified as Anton. "You're really hot. Why didn't you tell us you had a new hot friend?"

This last part wasn't directed at Valkyrie, but she still froze at his words. Meanwhile, Fletcher only blushed and Skulduggery shrugged easily. "We're not all like you, Anton. Nymphomania isn't an affliction we suffer."

"Well, just because you put on such a convinving show of asexuality..."

"Anton," Ghastly interrupted. "Please lower the levels of crazy. Valkyrie doesn't know you're like this all the time."

Anton sighed dramatically, but he didn't seem particularly put out as he turned again to Valkyrie. "You're in a few of my Economics classes," he said. "I'm the one sleeping in the back."

Valkyrie nodded. "Right. You're the one Professor Craven threw his chalk at last week?"

Anton looked proud, but his friend only gave him an annoyed look. "You won't break into the hotel trade at this rate," Skulduggery said. "Especially with the added difficulty of you taking a theatre minor instead of something more practical."

"Ah, but you're not an _artiste_," Anton said sagely. "The stage doesn't call to you as it does to me."

"Ignore him," Erskine advised Valkyrie. He was, she noted distantly, very good looking. He had thick brown hair and a sly grin, as if he was sharing a close joke with whoever it was turned on. "Anton's dramatics are a usual occurence."

"So you're not doing theatre, then?" she asked.

He laughed, an easy, friendly sound. Valkyrie noted with the same distant interest that Fletcher was frowning at them. "God, no. I'm doing political science and international relations. I'm definitely not one of the arty kids." He paused, and a thoughtful look came across his face. "I was Romeo in a play once, though. Maybe that speaks of hidden depths."

Anton scoffed. "You hit Juliet with your fake sword. I'd hardly say that screamed of undiscovered talent in the arts."

"He's jealous," Erskine said confidantly to Valkyrie. "He was only an understudy to Tybalt. It was shameful."

Anton soon moved the conversation on to a party that was being thrown that night.

"It'll be great," he assured them. "I'm thinking of having a strip poker game. Or strip Monopoly. Or strip Twister! There's nothing better than strip Twister."

Ghastly winced. "The only thing worse than you taking millions of selfies at a party is you introducing strip Twister at a party. Need I remind you what happened last time we played it? I've never been the same since. We reached a level of friendship that night that I'm still not entirely comfortable with."

Erskine tapped his fingers against his cup. "We could compromise with strip Irish snap, if that would be less mentally scarring."

"You know I hate Irish snap," Fletcher scowled. "I always lose."

"Perhaps the incentive of naked girls will help you improve," Erskine suggested.

Valkyrie had remained silent throughout the conversation about the party, and now Anton turned to her. "You'll come, won't you? There's honestly not that much nudity at our parties. Well, there is, but everyone's half-naked so it isn't really an issue."

Valkyrie moved her drink around in her hands awkwardly. She had only recently grown comfortable to an extent talking to Tanith's friends, and she wasn't sure how to react to the two confident males she'd just met.

"Maybe. I'm trying to concentrate on coursework right now, so I'm not sure..."

"Not an excuse," Anton said sombrely, shaking his head. "You need to have fun. University is about coffee, alcohol, stripping games, hipster photos and doing assignments at the last minute. Come to my party and you'll experience all of these!"

Valkyrie opened her mouth to protest, but found herself smiling, just a bit, in spite of herself.

"All right," she said. "I'll come."

* * *

><p>"This is brilliant!" Tanith exclaimed as from her position on Valkyrie's floor. She was in the middle of a stretch that highlighted how ridiculously flexible she was: one of her legs was straight up in the air as she held her toes. She retracted her leg and started spinning about the bedroom, an impressive feat in itself due to its small size.<p>

"Please stop," Valkyrie eventually said as Tanith kept whipping around in a circle. "My eyes are hurting."

Tanith revolved slowly to a stop and threw herself in the desk chair, smiling widely. Valkyrie had become accustomed to Tanith's energy and unbounded optimism, so much so that she now felt fond whenever they were particularly prominent in Tanith's nature, rather than making her feel like a weary nihilist.

"Anton throws the best parties," Tanith said. "God, the stories I could tell you..." She shook her head, still grinning. "What did you think of him and Erskine?"

"They were both nice. Anton was..." she paused, trying to look for a tactful word. "...loud."

Tanith nodded. "Oh yeah, Anton's a bit like a multicoloured explosion in a klaxon factory."

"Being friends with him must be tiring."

"OK, well, you know those moments when you're watching a film, and a character does something so physically embarassing that you just have to pause everything, look at the ceiling and whisper 'oh my God'? Being friends with Anton is a lot like that."

She leant forward and cupped her face in her hands. "Anyway. What are you going to wear?"

Valkyrie shrugged. She was lying on her bed, propped up by pillows, and a half-filled notepad was open beside her. It fell onto the floor as she leaned forward and held up a shirt hanging from the end of her bed for Tanith's inspection.

"How about this?"

The other girl's expression twisted painfully. "If the party was being held in a nunnery, yes."

"I like it," Valkyrie said defensively. It was a vintage Smiths T-shirt, one that had been Gary's, and she hugged it against her chest as Tanith swung her long bare legs - she somehow felt warm enough for shorts in February - out of the chair. She tapped the door to Valkyrie's wardrobe and gave her a questioning look. "Can I go through this?"

Valkyrie nodded her assent, only after a second of hesistation, and Tanith pulled open the door and started flipping through the rail. She made a satisfied noise when she was depressingly near the end and pulled out a black dress. "This is great!"

"I'm not really a dress kind of girl. My mum made me bring it with me in case of any fancy events."

"Then this definitely counts." Tanith laid the dress across the bed and looked at it critically. "I suppose you could wear it with tights and boots. I've got a really great leather jacket that would go with it, but it might be a bit big in the shoulders, hang on..."

She flitted out of the room and was back within a minute, carrying a spectacular black leather jacket across one arm. "Oh, yes," she said, smiling. "This is definitely going to do."

"Don't you want to wear the jacket?"

Tanith waved her arm in a movement similar to Anton's. "Don't worry, I'm not going to feel the loss. I've got about fifty of them. Anyway," she checked her watch, "we've got a few hours until we have to start getting ready. Want to go make pancakes?"

Now there was something Valkyrie could really get on board with. Clothes she couldn't care less about, but Tanith's pancakes were probably with a recipe from God. Probably.

"Do you have maple syrup?"

"Naturally."

* * *

><p>The party at Anton and Erskine's off-campus apartment was in full swing when Valkyrie, Tanith and Fletcher arrived. Skulduggery, China and Ghastly had all declined to accompany them to the party with the excuse of work (Skulduggery had thrown his criminology textbook at Fletcher when he had asked), although the males had agreed to turn up later that night.<p>

The apartment, and the floor outside, was packed. _Thrift Shop _played from a DJ set as the trio shouldered their way into the living room. Various university students were moving past them, swaying to the music or talking in groups. A few kids, Anton at the centre, were doing body shots on a table. Tanith lowered her head to Valkyrie's level, her lips tickling Valkyrie's ear. "I'm going to go over and say hi, OK?"

She pointed towards the group doing body shots, all cheering as a blonde boy licked a stripe up Anton's chest.

(Erskine was clearly visible in a corner, scowling at the blonde with folded arms.)

Valkyrie shot her a thumbs-up and felt a momentary panic as Tanith's head bobbed away from her. The people around her seemed to crowd closer, and she took a faltering step back, trying to calculate the distance to the door, when she felt a hand against her waist.

"Valkyrie" Fletcher's voice said against her hair. "Want to come with me to the kitchen?"

Her shoulders relaxed, and she nodded, suddenly infinitely grateful for the boy's presence.

Fletcher kept his hand on her the whole way to the kitchen, being careful to not press but maintaining a steadying warmth against her. He immediately moved it away when they reached the kitchen, which was occupied only by a moody-looking goth girl making herself a drink.

Fletcher ignored the girl, and poured a glass of water, handing it to Valkyrie with a smile. She felt the own corners of her mouth turn up as she accepted it, hiding her surprise by taking a sip. Involuntary smiling was a rare, though increasingly more common, occurrence for her.

"Thank you."

He was still smiling: his eyes crinkled at the corners when he did.

"No problem. Hey Mel, pass the crips?"

The goth glared and thunked the Pringles packet beside Fletcher before sashaying out with her drink.

"Don't mind her," Fletcher said as he popped open the packet. "She hates everyone."

Valkyrie took a Pringle and broke it into pieces, listening to Fletcher's soothing babble. He was in the middle of an anecdote about the time he, Skulduggery and Ghastly went paintballing and Ghastly's gun exploded when Anton, Erskine and Tanith entered the kitchen.

Anton, who looked extremely smug, had a neck covered in possessive-looking bites, and Erksine was wearing a sheepish expression. Nobody commented on this, so Valkyrie thought she would also keep it to herself.

"I love strip Twister," Anton said with relish as he took hold of the Pringles tub. "But I have to ask, what came first, the body shots or the strip Twister?"

"The body shots," Tanith told him. "That's how you got drunk enough to introduce strip Twister. Not that _you_ need to be very drunk to play it."

For the next few minutes there was companionable silence in the kitchen, as Anton and Fletcher ate Pringles, Tanith did some stretches and Erksine sneaked looks at Anton. Valkyrie stayed in her seat and tried not to feel as if she was a liar wearing the skin of a girl who was friends with the people who surrounded her. (It didn't work.)

After a few minutes Tanith and Anton left to get back to the party. Valkyrie thought she was the only one to notice how Anton sought out Erskine'e eyes before he left, and how his head lowered when Erskine didn't look at him, as if he had been refused access to some unexplainably important thing.

"I'm going to run across to the Codfather," Fletcher announced after looking up from his phone, seemingly unaware of the tension in the room. "Skulduggery and Ghastly are going to meet me outside."

"The Codfather?"

Erskine smiled at Valkyrie's question. "It's the fish and chips shop just down the road. We visit it more than is probably healthy. Ghastly's actually the reason they introduced vouchers there."

They followed Fletcher out of the kitchen and as he promised to save a few chips for them, the crowd in front of them shifted. Across the room a lithe female with a flashing mane of red hair danced against Anton, pressing her arms to his chest while his hands went around her waist. Beside Valkyrie, Erskine stiffened.

Before she was fully aware of it, Valkyrie had bade goodbye to Fletcher and had her hand on Erskine's arm. She wasn't sure what it was. A reaction to friendly boy's obvious distress; a leftover remnant of when she had friends she loved. "Do you want to get out of here?"

Erskine nodded, relief so strong it was crushing passing across his face when Valkyrie half-lead him from the room. "We can get to the roof," he murmured to Valkyrie, who headed for the staircase leading upwards. Erskine and Anton's flat was on the sixth floor of an eight-storey building, so it didn't take them long to push open the door that opened onto the rooftop. Erskine walked her to the edge, where there was a low wall of bricks to lean against.

The roof itself wasn't much to look at; a few deckchairs and exposed pipes. The view was what made it worthwhile.

The lights of Dublin's centre were spread out before them, the city lit up like crystallized lightning. It had the profound effect of making the viewer feel aware of both the incredible proximity to human life around them, and the loneliness of knowing a fraction of these lives, all connected by the glowing hub that surrounded them all.

Valkyrie loved Dublin, and she was well acquainted with loneliness, but something about the view hit her in the gut. She wondered if she could feel the lightning of everyone's lives if she leaned forward. She wondered if she was brave enough to.

"Wow," she whispered.

"I know," Erskine said with a small grin. "That was my reaction when Anton brought me up here during our first week in this place."

He sat down in one of the deckchairs and Valkyrie copied him, drawing her legs against her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

"So what's the deal with you and him?"

As soon as she said the words she winced. Pre-accident she'd been a straightforward sort of person, but since then she'd recoiled at any sort of direct manner. She liked Erskine, though. She liked all of Tanith's friends. That was the problem.

Erskine didn't notice her discomfort; he was staring straight ahead at the city. "We've been best friends since we were assigned as roomates in our first year. I always liked him, and I know he likes me, but he likes a lot of other people too." He gave a long, deep sigh that made Valkyrie sad just from hearing it.

"I'm tired of bumping into his hookups in the kitchen the morning after. I'm tired of him kissing me like it's no big deal. I'm exhausted of not even hiding how I feel any more and him still not seeing."

"You did seem...annoyed at that boy who he was doing body shots with earlier."

"You noticed that, then? He didn't. Not even when I pulled him into the coat cupboard and attacked his neck. What an oblivious bastard."

His tone softened towards the end, and he turned to face Valkyrie. "You know he tells me about the nights he's spent with other guys and girls? I mean, I get that we're best friends and he thinks we're completely casual with the whole messing about thing, but I don't know how much longer I can take him talking about his conquests. I almost wish he would find out."

He ran a hand through his hair and shifted agitatedly in his seat. "Sorry. I've got no idea why I'm telling you all this. I already get enough pitying looks from everyone else."

Valkyrie, for someone who was drenched is misery, wasn't comfortable seeing it in people she liked.

"I don't think anyone pities you. You're a great person, and you should find out from Anton himself how he feels about you. My last boyfriend -" (_God, Gary) _"...he apparently had a thing for me for ages before he asked me out. He was one of my best friends for years, and I only had a vague notion he liked me. Life's too short to be scared of saying something important. You'll never know if Anton wants more if you don't say anything to him. But from the way he looks at you, I think he does too."

She was surprised when she finished talking, both by the amount she'd said and the ache of bringing up her past. The truth always had a painful way of blowing a bleeding gash in her insides. Valkyrie pulled her legs more tightly against her chest, while Erskine smiled at her.

"Thanks, Valkyrie. That was pretty great advice."

He got off the chair and offered her a hand up. She took it, keeping one careful arm around her torso. "Are we heading back in?"

"Yeah. It's always too cold at night to stay out here for long. Let's see if Fletcher's kept any chips for us."

(He hadn't, but Anton frowned when they re-entered the party with Erskine's arm around her shoulders, so everything was OK.)

* * *

><p>After the party, something seemed to have changed for Valkyrie.<p>

She still hesitated whenever someone asked her to join them and didn't mention anything from her old life, especially after the slip with Erskine.

She did contribute a slight bit more, though. And in her mind 'Tanith's friends', unconsciously, became her friends.

Maybe it was that mentioning Gary hadn't killed her. Maybe it was knowing that her friends from Haggard would be proud. Or maybe it was Anton and Erskine holding hands next time she saw them together.

Whatever had shifted, she found herself with Tanith, China and Erskine in Cobbs one morning about a fortnight after the party, trading complaints about essays.

"I couldn't care less about describing the impeccable form of the Bolshoi Ballet," Tanith grumbled over her scone. "I learn from trying to copy them, not writing down the beautiful way in which the dancers can pull off an arabesque."

Erskine scoffed. "You think that's bad? How about trying to research Mugabe's seizure of white-owned land and how that was a key factor in the downfall of Zimbabwe's agricultural market while your boyfriend is attempting to take off your jeans."

"I don't know what you're complaining about," China said. She was impeccable as always in a white skirt and silk blouse. A pendant that probably cost more than Valkyrie's house was nestled against her breastbone. "I wish my lecturer would give us harder reading. I could have completed the work on Poe we've been assigned to do right now in high school."

She sipped daintily on her tea and, after she had placed it down, fixed her blue eyes on Valkyrie. "I have something to give you."

Valkyrie blinked. "Uh, OK?"

Tanith and Erskine seemed just as interested as she was as China opened her handbag and brought out a piece of paper, which she handed to Valkyrie.

"It was advertised in the English department," China said as Valkyrie scanned the paper. "A creative short story which will guarantee you extra credit on your courses. I checked, and the subjects you're taking correlate with the ones specified in the contest. All you have to do is hand it in to the resource centre by next week."

Valkyrie finished reading at the same time China finished talking, and lifted her eyes to the other female in complete confusion. "But...what?"

"Why didn't you tell us about this?" Tanith said, leaning forward to take the paper off Valkyrie. "I wouldn't say no to a little extra credit."

"First-year students only," China explained. "And Fletcher can't write creatively to save his life."

"What makes you think I can?"

China turned to Valkyrie with the barest hint of a smile on her face; Valkyrie knew by now that that on China, that was almost a full-on beam.

"You're Gordon Edgely's niece. You can write."

At the mention of his name, Tanith couldn't seem to resist launching into a description of her top five death scenes in Gordon's books to Erskine. While they chortled over a decapitation in _The Coward Colonel Fleece _Valkyrie looked at China, who was back to sipping from her cup.

"Thank you," Valkyrie said honestly. "I don't know if this is the type of thing for me, but thanks anyway. It's really nice of you."

"I am not a nice person," China said levelly. "But I've observed you, Valkyrie, and I think you deserve this. There's something...interesting about you."

Valkyrie bobbed her head in reply, and made to enter Tanith and Erkine's conversation. But for the next while, like an itch under her skin, a part of her wondered how close China was to the truth.

* * *

><p>China, Tanith and Erskine eventually left the cafe: China to a lecture, Tanith to kickboxing class, and Erskine to a student council meeting.<p>

Only a few students seeking a caffeine fix or a place to edit their dissertations remained. Valkyrie was the only one in her corner of the room, although she still looked around almost guiltily before flipping to a fresh page in her notebook and bringing out a pen. She wasn't a writer, and yet a small part of her, a part that used to be big and was now getting bigger every day, seemed to ask 'Why not?'

It sounded a lot like Gordon, and that was what made her put the pen down to the paper.

A short story, it definitely was; a boy and a girl on a rooftop, looking at the night-time lights of a city and discussing unrequited love. Not original, not by a long shot. It was something, though. She wrote the final sentence - _Does lightning taste as good as it looks? _- and flicked through the few pages. It had taken her just over an hour, and she was tired. Checking it over would take a while. She ordered another coffee before she began her edits.

* * *

><p>A few hours later, Valkyrie fiddled with her fork while Tanith poured herself more Coke. When Tanith wasn't eating out with friends, and when she hadn't persuaded Valkyrie to come along to eat out, this was how they had dinner in the evenings.<p>

They sat at the kitchen counter, plates between them, as Tanith spoke about her day and Valkyrie offered a few pieces of information about her own. The chilli Tanith had made that night (nine times out of ten Tanith cooked; Valkyrie was perfectly content to wash up) was hot, and Valkyrie used the excuse of refilling her glass to doge conversation.

"You're quiet tonight," Tanith remarked. "Are you OK?"

"I'm fine. Just thinking. Will the resource centre be open right now?"

Tanith checked the clock hanging on the kitchen wall. "It should be. It's half nine right now, and it closes at ten."

Valkyrie nodded firmly as if deciding something, swung her legs out of the kitchen stool and picked up her bag. "I'm just going to head over there right now," she said, pushing a black lock of hair out of her face as she straightened up. "Can you save my dinner for later?"

"Of course: that's what the microwave is for. I'll see you later!"

Valkyrie called goodbye as she closed the door to the flat and checked her watch. She'd be fine for time if she walked quickly. She took the stairs to the bottom of the building two at a time and made a short cut over the lawn to the group of buildings that included the resource centre, a long blocky construction.

Stopping outside the doors, she stuck a hand into her bag and dug around for her notebook. She frowned, and pulled the zip of the bag wider. Still no notebook. Valkyrie glared at the ground. There wasn't enough time to go back to her apartment and get it, and she'd been so sure she hadn't taken it out of her bag after leaving the cafe -

She realised as soon as she looked inside her bag; she had picked up a cafe menu, which had a similar colour and shape to her notebook.

Grumbling curses under her breath and sincerely hoping that her notebook had been found by a worker at Cobbs and not one of the scarfed hipsters that frequented there, she turned around, wanting nothing more than her warm plate of chilli and a hot shower.

She didn't expect to see a familiar figure striding across the grass with his hands stuck in his trouser pockets. "Fletcher?" she called tentatively, not entirely sure she was right until his blonde spikes were picked out by a hanging light. Yes, it was definitely him.

"Valkyrie! What brings you to this part of the woods? Other than the fact that you study here, I'm sorry, forget I said anything."

"No, that's fine." She thumbed back at the building behind her. "I was going to hand something in to the resource centre, but I forgot it. What are you doing here? I thought you lived in another part of campus?"

"I do," he said, leaning back on his heels a little. "I was heading back there. I'm a waiter at a restaurant close to here. Sometimes I work nights."

"Oh, right." Valkyrie felt surprised at the fact Fletcher worked; he didn't seem the type to want a part-time job, but she knew it was normal. Everyone had to pay their way through university somehow.

"Is the restaurant worth me checking out?"

"God, no. The food's terrible. And the service is even worse."

Valkyrie laughed with him, and they fell into step as they walked away from the centre.

"So what was it you forgot?"

He seemed genuinely interested, but Valkyrie had to groan again at her absentminded mistake. "My notebook. I wrote a short story for a contest China told me about, and I was going to hand it in, but I left it in Cobbs. I don't know why I'm so upset - I mean, I wasn't too fussed about the contest - but a ton of lecture notes are in that notebook and I didn't think the story was too bad..."

She tailed off as Fletcher, with an amused glint in his eyes, swung his backpack off of his shoulders and pulled a red A5 pad from it. "A notebook like this one?" he asked, waving it in front of her.

"That's mine," Valkyrie said, almost defensively, as she took it off him. "How did you get it?"

"I went into Cobbs to get something to eat - pretty soon after you left, I guess - and found it lying on our usual table. You use it all the time in business lectures and tutorials, I knew it was yours. And China had mentioned something about a writing contest."

Valkyrie flipped to the end of the notebook, but the pages she had written the story on were missing.

"So," Fletcher continued, watching her face closely as understanding dawned, "I went to the resource centre before my shift and handed your story in."

"Oh," she said, hoping her gratitude would convey itself in her tone. "How did you know you were handing in the right story, and not just my notes on macroeconomics?"

Fletcher grinned, the cheeky tilt of his lips that had somehow, over the months, become familiar to her. "'Does lightning taste as good as it looks?'"

"You read it, then."

"Of course I did. It was brilliant."

They had ended up at the door to her building. Valkyrie smiled as she took out her key, tucking the notebook under her arm as she slid it into the lock. "Thanks, Fletcher. I owe you one."

He rolled his eyes. "No you don't. That's what friends are for, right?" He waved goodnight and headed off in the direction of his own accomodation before he could see the content look slide off Valkyrie's face to be replaced with something a lot more hesitant.

"Right," she echoed, and walked inside.


	7. Kermit the Frog

_**Over halfway done with the fic, guys! So Valkyrie and Erskine being bros somehow...happened? I take no credit for the "There's God, then there's me" line, as that belongs to the wonderful Michael MacIntyre.**_

_**I don't know if manhunt is just called that from where I come from, but it's essentially a mix of tag and hide-and-seek.**_

_**The 'caring is not an advantage' line comes from the **_**Sherlock **_**episode **_**A Scandal in Belgravia**_**, which I like to think is the episode Skulduggery is watching.**_

_**A warning: Anton makes gratuitous **_**Games of Thrones**_** later on.**_

* * *

><p><em>When my heart just burst like a glass balloon <em>

_And let it fly too high and it shattered too soon_

_I was the wrong damn girl in the wrong damn room_

_I broke my glass balloon_

* * *

><p><em>To some people, manhunt was a simple, fun game. With Valkyrie's friends, it was different. To them, it was <em>war.

_"I can't see anyone," Nathan whispered, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose while he peered around the bin he and Valkyrie were hiding behind. His thin face was flushed with excitement, and they both trembled from anticipation. At thirteen, little else could be more thrilling._

_"Hannah definitely got Gary," Valkyrie said, stretching her legs out on the dusty pavement. "I don't know about Ronan."_

_"Oh, I'm 'it' too," a cheerful voice said behind them, and Valkyrie and Nathan whirled around just to feel Ronan's hand tap each of them on their shoulders. "Manhunt one, two, three!" he yelled, and cackled at the scowls on his friend's faces._

_"I got them," he shouted, and Gary and Hannah appeared around the bin. "Well done," Hannah said, giving them an appraising look. "We took ages to find you."_

_Nathan and Valkyrie exchanged rueful smiles. "We were awesome," Nathan said. "Let's go get ice cream and celebrate nearly winning." He stood up and helped Valkyrie off the ground. The five of them trailed their way towards Haggard's sweet shop._

_Ronan kicked his feet against the ground and brushed his arm against Valkyrie's. "I'm surprised you didn't win."_

_"I know. I always win," Valkyrie grinned. "I'm that cool."_

_Gary patted the top of her head. "No matter how smug it'll make you, I think I'll have to agree with that."_

_"OK, that does make me kind of smug."_

_"There's the girl we know and love."_

_The sweet shop was still open past seven in the evening - the long, dry summer nights had proved good for business. The group got their ice-creams and sat on the pavement at the end of the road, under the shade of a tree._

_Hannah passed around a bottle of elderflower juice, her favourite. It was a muggy evening, enough to make Valkyrie drowsy while she licked ice cream off of her wrist. Gary had finished his cone first and was hunched over a small pile of leaves he had pulled from the tree, flicking a lighter, trying to set them alight._

_None of the others bothered saying anything; they had long since accepted Gary carried a lighter around in his pocket and had a minor fascination with fire._

_Valkyrie lay back, ignoring the gravel that would inevitably stick to her clothes, and looked up at the tree. There was something about seeing a blue sky through green leaves, she thought. The blue wasn't as deep as it was in the afternoon, but it was clear enough. She liked it when the sun shone just the right way so that it made the green and azure more vibrant. It looked simple._

_Gary crowed, and she sat up, brushing her hands against her shorts. A small, nearly indistinguishable flame licked against the bundle of leaves. Nathan was looking around for any adults, but their end of the street was empty - everyone was in their gardens or at the shore, lazing in the sun._

_"Why would you want to make it hotter?" Ronan moaned. "It's already too warm."_

_Gary just set his chin obstinately. "It looks nice." The others rolled their eyes, but they dutifully waited until the leaves had blackened and curled up to get to their feet._

_"Water fight?" Nathan suggested as they walked down the street, Valkyrie balancing on the kerb, her arms see-sawing out as she walked._

_Hannah's nose wrinkled, but Valkyrie, Ronan and Gary whooped, so it was decided. They raced back to Nathan's house, trainers slapping against concrete and dry earth, pounding into a rhythm until they all sounded as one._

She woke up with the taste of ashes and elderflower in her mouth. For the first few moments of consciousness it was strong; then as sleep faded and she swallowed, it faded, until the tip of Valkyrie's tongue buzzed only with a half-remembered dream, flitting just out of reach.

There was a few soft taps on her door and Tanith's voice came hesitantly through the wood. "Are you awake? Bad nightmare?"

"I'm fine. I told you, I don't get nightmares. I just remember things."

She winced, forced her tone to be less harsh, and tried again. "Sorry. Didn't mean to snap. I don't function well in the mornings."

The English girl laughed in her easygoing way. "No problem. See you in a few."

Her light footsteps paced away from the door, and Valkyrie sighed a silent thank-you that her roomate was so forgiving. She raised her shoulders, then slumped them with a yawn, casting her gaze around her surroundings. Her bedroom always looked optimistic in the morning light that fell in folds to her floor, although the only thing she was optimistic about was that she still had a few hours until her lecture that day at 11:00.

She looked at her clock. It was 10: 02.

She swore and tumbled out of bed, shedding pyjamas and grabbing random items of clothing as she went.

* * *

><p>It was a month before the finals fortnight, and Valkyrie was already tired of them. Her lecturers (she had made her 11: 00, but just barely) and tutorial group leaders had given her an increasing difficult workload in the run-up to her final exams, and she felt her head was going to spin off.<p>

Good news had arrived last week in the form of her gaining extra credit for her short story; her parents especially were thrilled when they found out.

"We're so proud of you," her mother told her down the phone while Valkyrie moved through her room and picked up the clothes strewn across the floor from her mad dash that morning to toss into her laundry hamper.

"Thanks," she replied, looking suspiciously at a top she thought she had worn last week. Best to be on the safe side. She threw it into the hamper.

"Is that our daughter I hear?" Desomond's voice drifted into her ear through the receiver. "You mean she's not dead? Not captured by pirates? There's pirates in Dublin, right?"

There was a shuffling sound as Melissa passed over the phone.

"Hi, Dad. I'm pretty sure there aren't pirates in Dublin."

"How else do you explain over a week of radio silence? Your mother was worried. I remained by usual cool, unflappable self, obviously."

"Yeah right. How's Gordon?"

Her dad laughed. "He's got a new girlfriend. Some beautiful fiery literary type. He's bringing her to the book launch in London."

Valkyrie closed the lid of the laundry hamper and surveyed her room, phone clamped between her shoulder and ear. The floor was, for the first time in weeks, completely visible. She counted that as a success.

"I'll call him later and congratulate him. How long do you think she'll last?"

"Hm, that I don't know. He hasn't dated many redheads before, so this could be an adventure for him. But enough of my brother's exploits! How about you? We really were worried when you didn't call. And more worried when you only answered our calls with three-word texts."

"I'm sorry, Dad. I am. Uni has just been really hectic for the past few weeks, we're preparing for finals next month and I've only just got a long enough break to phone you and tidy my room."

"At least we're ranked above cleaning your room. Did you find any radioactive waste under your bed? From what I remember of your domestic habits, some primordial slime has to have formed by now."

"Ha-ha. I can now actually see my floor. It was covered in books and dirty clothes before. No swamp slime, unfortunately."

"There's always next time."

"I'll keep you updated. Look, I have to arrange my bibliography for an essay. Can I call you on Thursday?"

"Of course! We'll bring Alice down to garble to you if she's awake when you call. She's going to be a great orator one day, I just know. I'll tell your mum you said bye. We love you."

"Same to you. Bye."

She hung up the phone and tossed it on the desk next to the picture of her high school graduation, taken almost a year ago. The smiles in it seemed faded to her, as if she was looking at the memory through a blurred glass, or from underwater. Her friends were always growing more distant to her, and that wasn't going to stop.

"Quit it," Valkyrie whispered to herself. Delving too deeply into her grief wasn't good for anyone.

She spent a while typing up her bibliography, then rotated around aimlessly in her revolving desk chair. It was quarter to seven, and there was still plenty of light left in the sky. She could hear the voices of students drifting through her half-open window as they walked past her building.

Suddenly, she wanted out. It was too late to go for a proper run, and she dithered in the kitchen while she wrapped her scarf around her neck.

Just as she was deliberating whether to take her books with her and try to cram in some reading, she caught sight of a note on the counter. Tanith always left them for her whenever she went out. (Valkyrie never left them in return, and Tanith never commented on it.)

_I've headed over to Ghastly's, so I might be late for dinner. Pop over if you want to say hey!_

Valkyrie it in her hand for a moment, weighing it against the silence in the room. It felt like an uneasy scale.

"OK, then," she said, and left the flat.

* * *

><p>She paused before knocking on the door to the flat that Ghastly, Skulduggery and Fletcher shared. They were her friends, she knew (<em>you made a mistake, you promised yourself you would stay away from friends, someone always gets hurt<em>) and she was now at least semi-comfortable around them...but still. She knew them a lot less than Tanith.

Steeling herself, Valkyrie knocked on the door twice.

"Come in!" someone called from inside. "Unless you're Tanith and Ghastly, in which case stay out there until you can keep your hands off one another and I deign to let you back in."

Valkyrie opened the door and stuck her head outside. "You're not going to kill me, are you?"

Skulduggery, who was sitting on the couch, grinned and waved her in. "You're safe. It's Tanith, Ghastly and their aggravating hormones that can stay outside."

He paused the TV that was on - _Sherlock_, she noticed - and stood up, moving the scarily huge books he had on his lap onto the table.

"Oh, don't inconvenience yourself for me," Valkyrie said quickly. "Tanith just left a note saying she was here and-"

"I need a break anyway," Skulduggery said, leaning down to pick up something that was hidden from Valkyrie's view behind the couch. He came up with a cello case. "I was at orchestra rehearsal earlier," he explained. "I did a bit of practice when I got back because you can't really get any playing done when the violas are murdering _Night On Bald Mountain_, and I forgot to put it away. Well, I say I forgot to put it away. I was really just avoiding Fletcher."

At that moment from the area of the bedrooms, she heard a loud thump and Fletcher shouting "I write sins not twenty-five page essays!"

"He doesn't do well with deadlines," Skulduggery explained. "Ghastly and I stay in the living area until he's done with his academic-related raging. One moment."

He pushed back the sleeves of his black button-up shirt and lifted his cello case - he had nice arms to match the nice voice, Valkyrie distantly thought before she coloured and looked hurriedly away.

Skulduggery came back from what she assumed was his bedroom and gestured at her to follow him into the kitchen area. "Thirsty?" he asked her. "Hungry? I'm going to put on some pasta."

"I am hungry," Valkyrie admitted. "I'll have some of the pasta, if that's OK. I don't know when Tanith will be back for dinner."

"Wise choice. I had to throw her and Ghastly out of the flat because of their amorous behaviour earlier, and we all know how they lose track of time when they get into their sickeningly adorable moods."

"Not a fan of romance, then?" Valkyrie said wryly.

"Not exactly. I don't see the point of it. And you? You're smart. I'm sure you've seen how Fletcher hangs onto every word of yours."

Valkyrie, who had opened her mouth, paused, and saw Skulduggery giving her a satisfied look.

"So you have noticed. I suppose it would be quite hard not to."

This was a topic of conversation Valkyrie didn't like. She couldn't believe anyone could think of her as anything but damaged goods, and the thought of replacing Gary with anyone was unthinkable.

"I don't see Fletcher like that," she mumbled, twisting her fingers around a hole in her scarf.

"That's fine. Fletcher won't expect anything from you. Do you want red sauce?" he asked, moving the conversation back to the dinner, and Valkyrie replied in the affirmative, grateful for the change of topic.

An half hour later their plates were empty, they had moved onto eating cheesecake, and they were discussing Skulduggery's interest in criminology.

"It's always been fascinating to me," he said, eyes glinting as he talked about the subject. "The process of finding out, of discovering something. Working out mysteries and crimes is even better. Everyone dreams of being a detective or spy at some point: I just never stopped. I lived on detective novels when I was younger, always reading Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Ian Rankin..." He stopped, and gave her an almost shy look, as if he were embarassed to reveal his reading habits. "Then I started thinking about it seriously. I especially like criminal profiling and behavioural analysis. So was Tanith for a while, when she got into watching Criminal Minds. For me, though, I knew I wanted to pursue criminology as a career, but I wanted to make sure I was doing some good while I was at it. I wanted to get rid of dangerous people. So I started reading up, learned how to use a gun, took hand-to-hand combat classes. Well, I took them from when I was a kid." His voice lowered as if he were making a confession.

"When I was really young, I wanted to be a ninja."

Valkyrie smirked, and he shook his head in a manner that would be called self-deprecating if she didn't know how acutely aware he was of his talents.

"I want to make some change in the world...but I have to admit, at the end of the day I still want to do criminology because of the reasons that mattered to me as an eight-year-old who was obsessed with Poirot."

"I know what you mean," Valkyrie said, the corners of her lips tilting up. "I loved the Millenium Trilogy."

"God, yes. It's an amazing series. What did you think of the last book?"

When Tanith and Ghastly returned at half past nine, they found Valkyrie and Skulduggery deep in discussion about the finer points of Fyodor Dostoevsky's _Crime and Punishment_.

"Hello," Tanith said, beaming at the two. "I see Skulduggery has broken out the cheesecake and dull Russian writers already. I'm going to rescue you."

Skulduggery propped his arms on top of the table and looked at Tanith with an eyebrow cocked. "Are you suggesting my company is somewhat lacking?"

"No," she said sweetly. "Your company doesn't need any suggestions from me to show that it's lacking."

Ghastly simply shrugged when Skulduggery turned to him with beseeching eyes, as if pleading some help from his best friend. "You're on your own, I'm afraid," Ghastly told him, heading over to the kettle. "If you're dumb enough to tangle with Tanith, that's not my problem."

"You're the one that introduced her to boxing!"

"Kickboxing, thank you very much," Tanith informed him. "Regular old boxing was too plain. I branched out. Ghastly told me I could do anything, so I kicked his ass."

Ghastly, who was now pouring steaming water from the kettle, scowled. "That was one time. One time you got the better of me. And I had the flu."

"And it ended with you flat on your back, as I recall," Skulduggery said as Ghastly handed around mugs. When he offered one to Valkyrie, she held up her hand with a shake of her head. She was more content sitting in her stool, quietly observing the repartee of the three friends.

Tanith smiled slyly as she lifted the mug to her lips. "Oh, you'd be surprised at the amount of times Ghastly has ended up on his back."

Skulduggery made a noise that sounded strangely like 'Gaaahh' for someone as eloquent as him. Tanith smiled angelically and looked towards Valkyrie. "Ready to go? I think we better leave before Skulduggery has a hernia or something."

Skulduggery narrowed his eyes and said something that sounded a lot like "I'm better than all of you," and Ghastly clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't be bitter, now."

"I didn't call you peasants, I'm hoping you're satisfied with that."

Tanith hopped off her stool. "Valkyrie, I'm going to tell you an important lesson: When Skulduggery mentions peasants, he's about to launch into a description of his own brilliance, which marks our cue to leave."

"We made a game of it," Ghastly added as Valkyrie and Tanith pulled on their jackets. "Every time he mentioned 'debonair', 'genius', 'suave' or 'charming' we took a shot. Bonus points if he said 'suavely charming.'"

Tanith giggled as Skulduggery glared. "See you guys later," she said, leaning up to kiss Ghastly's temple and pat Skulduggery's shoulder. Valkyrie thanked Skulduggery for dinner before they left.

While they made their way back to their own apartment, Tanith informed Valkyrie about post-exam plans she and Ghastly had been discussing.

"We were thinking about going swimming at the beach after finals, to celebrate getting them over. We can do it on the night of my dance showcase, that's the last exam. I didn't know if you liked swimming, so...?"

"I'm fine with swimming," Valkyrie assured her. "I used to swim all the time when I was younger. I was actually on the school team."

Tanith looked surprised. "Wow. You were on the school swimming team? You must've been been good."

"And the school running team. But to be honest, there weren't exactly a lot of kids in Haggard. Let alone kids that were decent at sports."

The blonde nodded. "Anyway, that's what we're planning to do. Now be completely honest: Is the cheesecake Skulduggery made better than my pancakes?"

* * *

><p>"You seemed to be having a good time," Ghastly said, raising his eyebrows ever so slightly as he held his mug of tea.<p>

"Intelligent conversation is so hard to come by these days. It was satisfying to find someone other than my immediate friends who can string more than a few sentences together."

"Hm," Ghastly said, and let it drop. That was one of the many wonderful things about Ghastly - he never talked when words weren't needed, he dealt with Fletcher's emotional problems, and he never intruded when Skulduggery didn't want him to.

They sat on the couch and watched the rest of the Sherlock episode; a few minutes before the finish, Fletcher wandered through with a glazed look on his face.

Skulduggery glanced at him. "You need a break. Come and sit with us. Highbrow TV is good for you. As opposed to that other thing you watch, what was it..."

"Don't even think about insulting _Adventure Time_," Fletcher muttered as he slumped into a chair.

When Ghastly went to make them more tea, Skulduggery studied Fletcher's half-lidded eyes as he rested his chin on the arm of his chair.

"Valkyrie was here earlier," he said.

Immediately, Fletcher shot up, the sleepy look disappearing altogether. "She was here? When? Why? Did she ask about me?"

"She came over to see if Tanith was here," Skulduggery said patiently, already regretting mentioning it. "We had some dinner and talked for a while. I think you were in the middle of destroying your desk."

Fletcher shifted back in his chair and ran a nervous hand through his blonde spikes. "She's so pretty," he said. "And tough, and smart. Her hair is really shiny."

"Ghastly!" Skulduggery called, addressing his friend in the kitchen. "Fletcher is having some sorts of feelings, so I'm retiring to my room. I will come to retrieve my tea when his emotional episode is over."

He got up, ignoring another round of 'Praise for Shiny Hair feat. Fletcher' and made his way to his bedroom.

Skulduggery sat down on his neatly-made bed and exhaled a long gust of breath. Sometimes his friends - and one English boy in particular - were incredibly taxing. He was glad Valkyrie around. A smart girl, mature, although if Fletcher's crush got any worse it was going to become significantly annoying. Skulduggery opened his door a crack and poked his head out.

"She's so _mysterious_," Fletcher was gushing to Ghastly, who had a martyred expression on his face.

Skulduggery retracted his head and closed the door quietly. He was going to be in his room for some time.

* * *

><p>The next day Valkyrie's morning lecture was cancelled, so she went for a run.<p>

She was jogging down a path that led through the woody area of Felty Park and feeling proud of her running playlist for that day - _I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor _had just finished and the opening to Vampire Weekend's _A-Punk _was now increasing her running tempo - when she noticed a jogger heading towards her from the opposite direction. When they slowed as they approached her, Valkyrie gave them a second glance and blinked in surprise when she realised it was Erskine.

He was evidently just finishing a run of his own, and he pushed his damp fringe off of his forehead while he grinned at Valkyrie.

"I don't usually see you here."

Valkyrie pulled out her earphones. "I could say the same for you. My lecture this morning was cancelled, so I thought I'd go for a run earlier."

He nodded. "Right. Hey, I don't think I've ever thanked you properly for getting me together with Anton-"

She held up her hands. "I can't claim any credit for that. You did it all yourself."

"Maybe so, but it was you who pushed me in that direction. Without you giving me that shove, I don't think I would have told him how I felt when I did. Maybe not at all." His eyes drifted to where her earphone buds dangled against her chest, playing Vampire Weekend softly into the air. Erskine grinned in particular way of his, sly and at the same time innocuous. "I like your taste in music."

"Thanks. Were you just heading back from a run?"

"Yeah. I was going to catch a shower then get some late breakfast before my tutorial."

"Oh, sure," Valkyrie said, stretching her arm out to hold one of her shoulders. "I won't keep you then."

A sharp wind blew down the path and Erskine shivered a little. "Look, I don't have political theory for another few hours. How about I finish the rest of your run with you, I take you to the most amazing cafe for brunch in the whole of Dublin and then we go get showered?"

Valkyrie raised her eyebrows. "It's going to feel disgusting sitting in a cafe after a run without washing."

"We're living life on the edge. Yolo. Hashtag cool kids."

"You've been hanging out with Anton too much."

"That's entirely true." He darted forward and tapped her shoulder. "You're it. Now you have to run with me."

He bounded away at a sprint, and Valkyrie, amused despite her best efforts, set off after him.

* * *

><p>Valkyrie had been correct on one account, and Erskine another: it did feel faintly nasty sitting in the cafe-cum-diner without taking a shower first, but they did serve the best brunch she had ever tasted.<p>

Since it was her first time in the venue, Erksine announced he was choosing the food for her. After sampling apple pie, berry granola, and pancakes to rival Tanith's, amongst the many other foods Erskine had forced at her, Valkyrie admitted he was right.

"You've gotta try this raspberry ripple smoothie," he said, shifting aside his porridge, bagel and plate of eggs Benedict to push a plastic cup towards her. "They put raspberries and kiwi and yoghurt and granola inside it, and it sounds weird, but my God if it isn't one of the most beautiful things I've tasted."

Eventually the swapping around of dishes slowed and Valkyrie and Erskine were locked in a post-food coma, slumped casually across their facing booths. "It's going to take me more than a few runs to get over this," Valkyrie groaned, resting her head against the wall.

"Are you kidding me? I've actually been here before, I've experienced the 'never going to eat again' resolve many times. This feeling never goes away. _Never_."

"For the next month I'm going to have to listen to all the fastest-tempo songs I have on my iPod when I run just to burn off the calories from brunch."

"Please don't say you usually listen to those thudding club mixes?"

She scoffed. "No. I like alt rock, and most of my dad's favourite bands. The Rolling Stones and Thin Lizzy, music like that."

"I'm impressed. Without a doubt, _Have You Seen Your Mother Baby? _and _It's the End of the World As We Know It_ are two of the best songs to run to. Classics I'm telling you, classics."

"_Weightless_, All Time Low. That is all."

"_Just A Little Bit _by The Kids of 88."

"_This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race_."

"Shiny Toy Guns' _Start With One_

"_My Body _by Young the Giant."

"_Alcohol Is Free_."

"...What?"

"Oh man, you really haven't been to one of Anton's parties, have you. He really, really likes this song." Erskine whipped out his phone; she saw him accessing YouTube and pulling up a video. "Listen," he commanded, sliding the phone across the table to her.

"This is like...a drinking song. A really hyperactive, foreign drinking song."

"Isn't it beautiful?"

When they left the cafe, Erskine said goodbye but made no attempt to hug her - he was quick to pick up on the 'don't touch' vibes she constantly projected - and instead smiled crookedly at her before he turned and walked in the direction of his and Anton's neighbourhood.

Valkyrie pulled on her hoodie and paused. She felt...content. She wasn't happy (she never was, these days) but the content feelings were popping up more and more often, just as smiles kept breaking out of her like some overzealous butterfly emerging from its chrysalis too early.

"Caring is not an advantage," she reminded herself, a little confused, and even more worried, and jogged back to her flat, listening to stupidly upbeat Greek skathe whole way.

* * *

><p>When Valkyrie entered Cobbs during Fletcher's study break, he could have punched the air with joy. Instead, he lounged on the table, adopting a nonchalant expression. Feeling Anton's gaze on him, he turned to see the other man wearing a smug smirk.<p>

"You texted Valkyrie to meet us here, didn't you? I don't know whether to kiss you or punch you in the face."

"I might take exception to at least one of these things," Erskine murmured from Fletcher's other side.

Anton continued to look all too pleased with himself. "What can I say? There's God, then there's me."

"She's coming over," Fletcher hissed, and slid on what he hoped was a charming - as opposed to his usual cocky - smile before he locked eyes with Valkyrie.

"Hello," she said to Anton in that underlying cautious way of hers. "When I gave you my mobile number I didn't expect you to send me an 'urgent emergency' text a week later."

"I know you're free right now," Anton said, unabashed. "Sit down and let me give you the diggity down low."

Both Erskine and Fletcher winced at the phrase as Valkyrie, looking confused, sat.

"So," Anton began, placing his hands flat on the table and leaning forward. "You did me a big favour in setting me up with this fine piece of great cheekbones and talented fingers-" at this he gestured to Erskine, who dropped his face into his hands, "-and a Shudder always repays his debts."

"You didn't actually just make that reference, did you," Erskine said, looking up from his hands in part-horror, part-amusement. "You're such a geek."

"When you play the game of fandoms, you win or you throw out witty references. There's no middle ground."

Fletcher and Valkyrie side-eyed one another, both feeling uncomfortable as Anton and Erskine grinned at one another, completely forgetting about the other two at their table as they continued to nerd-flirt.

"There is only one God and his name is Anton. And there is only one thing you say to Anton: 'Yes, I will sleep with you tonight.'"

Erskine's shoulders shook with laughter.

"Shut up or I'll make you shut up."

"With what?"

"My mouth."

Anton considered this. "You make a fair point," he said seriously, and then continued. "You are no true fan. Geeky innuendos cannot embarass a true fan-"

He was silenced as Erskine leant over and sealed his lips against Anton's.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Fletcher complained as Anton deepened the kiss, his arm sliding up to rest behind Erskine's back.

Valkyrie tapped her fingers against her phone, which was lying beside her on the table, and tried to look anywhere but the couple as Fletcher did the exact opposite and glared at them. "People are staring at you," he hissed, and Erskine eventually pulled himself away from his boyfriend, hair ruffled and smirking widely.

"People are always staring at me," Anton said casually. "I'm young and pretty. I can deal with it."

Fletcher looked ready to murder him. "_Anyway_. What were you saying to Valkyrie about favours?"

The theatre minor snapped his fingers. "Yes! I owe you a debt," he said earnestly, looking at Valkyrie. "And whenever you want to, you can call in a favour with me."

"That's what you wanted to talk to me about?" Valkyrie looked incredulous; she wasn't used to Anton's propensity for flair. "You couldn't just have texted me 'I owe you one' and have been done with it?"

"Where would the fun in that be?" Anton said, tipping some more sugar into his coffee. "Anyway, I needed to show you my gratitude in a way a _little _bigger than texting you. I'm serious. I owe you big time. Name a favour and I'll do it for you. But not anything sexual. I'm on the straight and narrow now." He paused. "Well. I suppose it's the gay and narrow, but the sentiment is still there."

He jumped from the table. "I'm going to get a refill. Valkyrie, you order black coffee, right? And I'll get you a muffin. Everybody loves blueberry muffins."

He sauntered off, leaving Valkyrie and Fletcher looking after him with similar dumbstruck expressions and Erskine in a slightly predatory way. "That's some man," he said in admiration.

"Hey," Fletcher said suddenly. "Why don't I get coffee and a muffin?" He nearly pouted at Valkyrie. "I should start setting couples up and see if they'll pay me back with food."

"It was nice of him to say he owes me a favour," Valkyrie said quietly. "But if he really thinks he needs to pay me back, he could just get me that coffee and be done with it."

"Anton's an overdramatic person," Erskine told her, as if she hadn't figured that out during her first meeting with him. "This is his way of saying thankyou. Just go with it."

She nodded, still seemingly unhappy. She looked like that a lot, Fletcher realized.

"Are you up for going on a run next week?" Erskine asked her. "I'm really busy for the next few days, but it would be good if we could get together around Sunday for a few hours."

After some gentle pestering on Erskine's part, Valkyrie agreed to meet up for a jog. Fletcher had zoned out. His gaze fell onto Valkyrie's phone, still resting against her hand on top of the table. The locked screen showed a picture of her and a boy, brown-haired and good looking, as they both smiled for the camera. The guy was standing behind Valkyrie, his arms around her shoulders, and she was relaxing into his touch, looking more comfortable in the digital image than he had ever seen her in real life.

"I got you some cake, don't say I'm not good to you."

Fletcher looked up as Anton placed a plate in front of him before sitting down. Valkyrie was still talking to Erskine, and Fletcher's curious stare at her phone had gone unnoticed. He was sure Valkyrie hadn't mentioned a boyfriend, although he had to admit nobody had really asked about her non-university friends.

He shook himself and reached for a fork. Later, when he could talk to Valkyrie, he'd ask her about the picture. It wasn't that big a deal.


End file.
